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The (Much Needed) Bruising Liberal-Left Divide Reshaping American Politics

  By Pete Davis The Guardian (10/26/17) It has been almost a year since the catastrophic election of Donald Trump. In his first year in office, the president has governed as cruelly and ineptly as his critics predicted. But while anti-Trump sentiment has never been more fierce and widespread, his political opponents are more divided than ever. And this faultline – which has parallels in Britain with divisions among the Labour party – could, if left unaddressed, compromise efforts to resist and defeat Trumpism. Roughly speaking, these two sides could be characterised as the “populist wing” and the “establishment wing” of the…


They Can’t Handle The Truth: Ron Kind’s ‘Third Way’ Comes To Wisconsin, Heard What It Wanted To Hear And Continues With It’s Clinton Corporate Delusions

  The researchers had somehow found their premise perfectly illustrated. Their journey to Trump’s America had done nothing to unsettle their preconceptions. By Molly Ball The Atlantic (10/23/17) It was the hippies who drove Nancy Hale over the edge. She had spent three days listening respectfully to the real people of Middle America, and finally she couldn’t take it any longer. She turned off the tape recorder and took several deep breaths, leaning back in the passenger seat of the rented GMC Yukon. The sun had just come out from behind a mass of clouds, casting a gleam on the rain-soaked…


Paul Wellstone’s Legacy: “Doing What I Honestly, Truthfully Believe Is Right.”

Wellstone Action By Abbey Zimet Common Dreams (10/26/17) This week marks the 15th anniversary of the sudden death of Minnesota’s progressive Sen. Paul Wellstone in a plane crash that also killed his wife, daughter, several staffers and two pilots. His death in 2002 came days before a dead-heat election where he was seeking a third Senate term; it also came two weeks after he became one of 23 lawmakers to vote against the invasion of Iraq. Many thought it would cost him re-election, but unlike the likes of Flake and Corker, he didn’t care: “This is what I believe. This is who…


Scared Of Ghosts? Nah, Americans Are More Realistic Of The Truly Scary Threats To Fear

  Chapman University (10/11/17) The Chapman University Survey of American Fears Wave 4 (2017) provides an in-depth examination into the fears of average Americans. In May of 2017, a random sample of 1,207 adults from across the United States were asked their level of fear about eighty different fears across a huge variety of topics ranging from crime, the government, the environment, disasters, personal anxieties, technology and many others. Below is a list of the 10 fears for which the highest percentage of Americans reported being “Afraid,” or “Very Afraid.” Top Ten Fears of 2017 % Afraid or Very Afraid…


Monsanto Attacks Scientists After Studies Show Growing Troubles For Weedkiller Dicamba

  By Dan Charles National Public Radio (10/26/17) In a normal year, Kevin Bradley, a professor of weed science at the University of Missouri, would have spent his summer testing new ways to control a troublesome little plant called water hemp. This has not been a normal year. “I don’t even talk about weed management anymore,” Bradley tells me, and he sounds disgusted. “Nobody calls me and ask me those questions. I barely have time to even work with my graduate students. Everything is about dicamba. Every single day.” Dicamba, an old weedkiller that is being used in new ways, has thrust…


Russia Monitor: It’s Mueller Time!

  By Dan Peak The Commoner Call (10/30/17) Dear Fellow Readers, A few months ago Keith Olbermann on his ‘The Resistance’ show said we’d wake up one morning and it would all be over. We’d see news images of lots of activity at the White House and all of a sudden… Trump would be gone. This is not that announcement but on Friday night, just after 8 PM Central CNN announced: First On CNN: First Charges Filed In Mueller Investigation. “A federal grand jury in Washington on Friday approved the first charges in the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller,…


White House Flack Gen. John Kelly: The Hollowest Of Empty Barrels

  By Jon Schwarz The Intercept (10/21/17) White House Chief of Staff John Kelly’s gruesome defense Thursday of President Donald Trump’s call to the widow of Army Sgt. La David T. Johnson was shocking. But it should not have been a surprise. Any examination of Kelly’s past public remarks makes clear he is not a sober professional, calculating that he must degrade himself in public so he can remain in place to rein in Trump’s worst instincts behind the scenes. Rather, Kelly honestly shares those instincts: He’s proudly ignorant, he’s a liar, and he’s a shameless bully and demagogue. The chief of…


Worker Notes: It’s Time For Unions To Assert A New Role For Leadership In The Economy

  By Tom Crofton The Commoner Call (10/30/17) A recent statement from the AFL-CIO regarding a rejection of NAFTA and other corporate/globalist trade agreements unfortunately only skims the surface of the issues working people face. As the dominate union leadership in America, the AFL-CIO and its member unions need to take a deeper look at their historical behavior, and their role in enabling the evolution of the corporate state with its current right wing, anti-labor stance. American unions never were interested in taking responsibility for production. American unions developed to confront management but not to replace it. The International Workers…


Let’s Get Clear About What Did – And Didn’t – Happen Thursday With JFK Documents

  By Rex Bradford Who.What.Why. (10/18/17) What happened on Thursday, Oct. 26, with the JFK records scheduled for release under the JFK Records Act? A travesty. Most news reports correctly noted the release of about 2,800 documents, but added that only a few were held back, in some cases saying “300 documents” remain withheld (see CNN, and Washington Post for example). They are off by a factor of 100. In fact, tens of thousands of documents, possibly as many as 30,000, remain sealed at the National Archives. If President Donald Trump had gone golfing at Mar-A-Lago and done absolutely nothing on Thursday, the…


More US Caused War & Misery: War Dept. Is Conducting Secret Missions All Over Africa

Pentagon photo. By Nick Turse Vice News (10/24/17) U.S. troops are now conducting 3,500 exercises, programs, and engagements per year, an average of nearly 10 missions per day, on the African continent, according to the U.S. military’s top commander for Africa, General Thomas Waldhauser. The latest numbers, which the Pentagon confirmed to VICE News, represent a dramatic increase in U.S. military activity throughout Africa in the past decade, and the latest signal of America’s deepening and complicated ties on the continent. With the White House and the Pentagon facing questions about an Oct. 4 ambush in Niger in which four…


Fair Warning: 20 Top Political Scientists Gathered To Discuss The State & Future Of Our Democracy. They’re Scared.

“If current trends continue for another 20 or 30 years, democracy will be toast.”   By Sean Illing Vox (10/13/17) Is American democracy in decline? Should we be worried? On October 6, some of America’s top political scientists gathered at Yale University to answer these questions. And nearly everyone agreed: American democracy is eroding on multiple fronts — socially, culturally, and economically. The scholars pointed to breakdowns in social cohesion (meaning citizens are more fragmented than ever), the rise of tribalism, the erosion of democratic norms such as a commitment to rule of law, and a loss of faith in…


The Question For Democrats: Should They Be True To Their Progressive Roots, Or Owned By Wall Street?

Identity crisis… By Harvey J. Kaye Common Dreams (10/24/17) Halloween is coming and fear mongering seems to be the order of the day — not just on the part of Republicans, but apparently no less so on the part of “centrist” and conservative Democrats who are expressing growing anxiety about offending big donors who see politics not as the pursuit of justice but as the pursuit of their interests. Douglas Schoen, said to have been Bill Clinton’s favorite pollster during his presidency, has taken to the op-ed page of The New York Times to warn center-right party members and friends that ‘all Hell will…


History Dem Party Rulers Don’t Want You To Know: Today’s Progressives Need To Know The Courage Of Visionary Henry A. Wallace

  “The greatest remedy for fear is to stand up and fight for your rights.”  – Henry A. Wallace By Mark L. Taylor The Commoner Call (10/26/17) In one of the most tragic pivot points in American – and world – history, Henry A. Wallace, FDR’s strong and visionary progressive vice president from 1941-1944 was elbowed aside in 1948 by the party’s corporate wing in favor of machine pol Harry S. Truman. What the democratic party Clinton/Obama establishment did to Bernie Sanders in the 2016 election was a replay of the nightmarish duplicity and mugged dreams and betrayed promise of 1948….


Reckless Cartoonist Tempts Damnation & The Wrath Of God…

Evangelical Scam Artist Little Jimmy Bakker Says We Will Answer To God One Day Because We ‘Made Fun Of Jim Bakker All Those Years’ By Kyle Mantyla Right Wing Watch (10/16/17) End Times prepper pastor Jim Bakker used his television program on Friday to send a message to those who monitor or mock him that they will one day have to answer to God for doing so. Saying that he is sick of people mocking him because some of his prophetic warnings have not yet come true, Bakker bellowed that “when God says something to you, you don’t always know the exact time…


Puerto Rico: We Fully Own The Whirlwind Of Problems Capitalism Has Brought To Our World

  By Tom Crofton The Commoner Call (10/26/17) The failure to treat our colony Puerto Rico as we treated suburban Houston is no accident and it brings sharply to focus how American Exceptionalism makes exceptions to those not white-skinned and upper class. Following the debacle of Hurricane Katrina, where working poor blacks were hit hardest by poor regional planning and investment, the sequel in the Caribbean shows how ruthless capitalists can be to those low on their ladder. The “external costs” of resource exploitation of the planet include the increasingly powerful storms that run wild over intentionally ruined mangrove swamps…


Daily Dose: Why Rational Arguments, Charts n’ Facts Still Won’t Win Elections

By Scott Wittkopf Frame4Future.com (10/24/17) All it takes to see a deeply flawed political strategy in practice is look at any recent press release from most Democratic candidates for governor, in this case, Andy Gronik: “We already know that even under the rosiest projections taxpayers won’t begin to be repaid from Foxconn for 25 years. If Scott Walker and WEDC make a $3 billion mistake with Foxconn, it will be even longer before the taxpayers are made whole. That’s just a bad deal for the taxpayers and will serve as an anchor around the neck of our state for years to come.” First,…


Russia Monitor – Russia’s Most Successful Export: America’s New ‘Normal’

  By Dan Peak The Commoner Call (10/25/17) Dear Fellow Readers, There is one thing you can count on in US politics right now – it is predictably unpredictable. On second thought, that is too optimistic. What’s predictable is that when the dust of the latest meaningless dust-up settles we’re going to get screwed again. Maybe a little… likely a lot. We dodged a fusillade with health care when the GOP Congress motivated by ideology and money couldn’t agree to agree with themselves on how to screw us best. Much like health care we have no idea what rewriting the…


Warning Of ‘Ecological Armageddon’ After Dramatic Plunge In Insect Numbers

  By Damian Carrington The Guardian (10/18/17) The abundance of flying insects has plunged by three-quarters over the past 25 years, according to a new study that has shocked scientists. Insects are an integral part of life on Earth as both pollinators and prey for other wildlife and it was known that some species such as butterflies were declining. But the newly revealed scale of the losses to all insects has prompted warnings that the world is “on course for ecological Armageddon”, with profound impacts on human society. The new data was gathered in nature reserves across Germany but has implications for…


European Parliament Votes To Ban Roundup

    Center for Biological Diversity (10/24/17) STRASBOURG, France – The European Parliament, representing 28 countries and more than 500 million people, voted today [10/24] in support of phasing out glyphosate over the next five years and immediately banning its use in households. “The European Parliament has correctly acknowledged the magnitude of glyphosate’s risks,” said Nathan Donley, a senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Now European regulators charged with protecting human health and the environment must follow the parliament’s brave leadership and phase out the gross overuse of glyphosate.” The vote by the European Parliament, which is made…


Cindy Sheehan: Bush Was No Better Than Trump When Her Son Died In Iraq

  By Travis Gettys The Raw Story (10/24/17) A Gold Star mother who famously protested former President George W. Bush said he was “no better” than President Donald Trump. Cindy Sheehan, who became an anti-war activist after her son, Casey Sheehan, was killed in 2004 while fighting in the Iraq War, told The Daily Beast that the former president offered no comfort to her grief. “Where is the movement to oppose U.S. wars, instead of liberal handwringing over botched messages of condolence?” “I think that in 2017 presidents having to comfort grieving families who had loved ones killed in war is barbaric,…


Longing To Dump Trump? Better Consider The Real Threat Of A President Pence

  (Editor’s Note: This is a superb profile and background history on who could well be the next president of the United States. One aspect that is not dealt with in detail is Pence’s extremist Christian Dominionist ideology – basically, an American version of rigid Taliban-like Christian fundamentalist orthodoxy. – Mark L. Taylor) By Jane Mayer The New Yorker (10/23/17) On September 14th, the right-wing pundit Ann Coulter, who last year published a book titled “In Trump We Trust,” expressed what a growing number of Americans, including conservatives, have been feeling since the 2016 election. The previous day, President Trump had dined with…


The GOP Robbing Hoods Of The State Legislature Have Slammed The Doors Of Open Government Shut

Like a coven of blood sucking vampires, our state representatives are afraid of sunshine’s truth revealing power. What, a citizen might wonder, goes wrong when lobbyists and our representatives are hiding in the darkness away from the view of the electorate? By Dennis Brault The Commoner Call (10/23/17)   Wisconsin Open Meetings Law Wis. Stat. § 19.81 (2016) .  Declaration of policy(1) In recognition of the fact that a representative government of the American type is dependent upon an informed electorate, it is declared to be the policy of this state that the public is entitled to the fullest and…


Mother Jones Magazine Investigation: Rigged – How Voter Suppression Threw Wisconsin To Trump

And possibly handed him the whole election. By Ari Berman Mother Jones (November/December 2017) You can’t say Andrea Anthony didn’t try. A 37-year-old African American woman with an infectious smile, Anthony had voted in every major election since she was 18. On November 8, 2016, she went to the Clinton Rose Senior Center, her polling site on the predominantly black north side of Milwaukee, to cast a ballot for Hillary Clinton. “Voting is important to me because I know I have a little, teeny, tiny voice, but that is a way for it to be heard,” she said. “Even though it’s…


Corruption Protector! GOP State Rep. Scott Allen Sides With Crony Capitalists To Silence Citizens

  By Jim Crist Wisconsin United To Amend (10/19/17) Nineteen states have called for a Constitutional amendment that would overturn the disastrous Citizens United decision. Representative Scott Allen won’t even allow a public hearing on a resolution that would let Wisconsinites vote on this core issue of our time. While many politicians may like unlimited and often undisclosed campaign contributions, the rest of America is disgusted by it. Last week, Allen refused a request to have AJR 53 placed on the public hearing agenda, calling the advisory referendum, “politics at its worst”. Wisconsin law provides for advisory referendums. There was a statewide referendum in 2006 pertaining to the death penalty. “Politics at its worst”……


ACTION ALERT – Look Who Wants To Come To Dinner: Hog Producer Targeting Driftless Water Sources

Public Meeting This Tuesday, Oct. 24, To Address Threat From Iowa Hog Producer. A Commoner Call reader wrote in with the following: I would encourage my friends and neighbors to come to Westby for this important meeting next week. Just because you might not be close enough to the proposed hog slaughter plant in between Westby in Viroqua doesn’t mean you won’t be impacted. They are going to need thousands of sows produce enough pork to feed this operation. Because hogs in confinement are very vulnerable to disease they like to spread these out. So they will be within a short…


DNC Responds To Its Bungling Ineptitude By Purging Progressive Reformers & Doubling Down On Failed Corporate Clintonism

  By Jake Johnson Common Dreams (10/19/17) Sparking concerns that party leadership is making the same mistakes that have rendered them increasingly powerless and without an inspiring vision, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is reportedly carrying out a massive staff shake-up in which veteran progressives are being purged and “left out in the cold.” “This doesn’t bring the party together, it deepens the divide at a time we need all hands on deck,” James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute and prominent Sanders supporter who was ousted from the DNC Executive Committee, wrote on Twitter Thursday. According to Alex Seitz-Wald of NBC News,…


Dems Are Well On The Way To Blowing It, Again

  By Tom Crofton The Commoner Call (10/23/17) The recent purge of progressive dems from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) would be shocking if the DNC and Democratic Party of Wisconsin (DPW) were truly parties of the people; forces building a better world and safe harbors for those working in the name of basic common sense, humanity, or sustainability. But forgetaboutit. The DNC has a long, sordid history of selling out the base it pretends it has, but the statements of then DNC chair Rep. Debbie Wassermann-Schultz during the last presidential race were a transparent indictment of duplicity of a party…


Russia Monitor: Golly-Gee-Willikers, Where To Next, Comrade?

  By Dan Peak The Commoner Call (10/23/17) Dear Fellow Readers, Trump-Russia. What happened? What needs to happen now? Trump continues to deny Russian involvement in aiding and abetting his election and may well be the single person in this administration clinging to that notion. To do otherwise would challenge his self-imagined mythical victory mandate. Attorney General Jeffrey Beauregard Sessions III blandly acknowledges that no steps have been taken to prevent the ongoing Russian influence in our politics. He admits this with a golly-gee-willikers, possum-in-the-headlight look of vacant-minded innocence as if he can’t imagine who should be doing something; as if…


On The Way To An American Gestapo? Under Trump, Brags Mike Pompeo, CIA Will Be ‘Much More Vicious Agency’

  By Andrea Germanos Common Dreams (10/20/17) According to Mike Pompeo, the agency he leads—which has supported coups across the globe, engaged in targeted killings, and led a detention and torture program—has not been nasty enough. Speaking Thursday at a Foundation for Defense of Democracies forum, the CIA director, who has signaled suport for torture, said “we’ve now laid out a strategy for how we’re going to execute our strategy with incredible vigor. We’re going to become a much more vicious agency in ensuring that we are delivering this work. We are going to go to the hardest places with some of the hardest…


A Measure Of Justice: Federal Judge Refuses To Erase Former Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Conviction

  By Andrew Emett Nation of Change (10/21/17) Despite receiving a presidential pardon this summer after repeatedly committing civil rights violations, former Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio recently lost a bid to wipe out his criminal conviction. Arpaio believed his conviction should have been erased because he had planned to appeal the court’s decision before President Donald Trump intervened on his behalf. Notorious for physically abusing inmates, launching an investigation into Obama’s birth certificate, and running a self-proclaimed concentration camp named “Tent City,” Arpaio abused his authority by targeting Hispanics who had not committed a crime and arresting them on suspicion…


Who Profits Off The Opioid Crisis? Meet The Secretive Sackler Family Making Billions From OxyContin Deaths

Democracy Now! (10/19/17) This week, President Donald Trump’s nominee for drug czar, Republican Congressmember Tom Marino, had to withdraw from consideration after a Washington Post/”60 Minutes investigation found he led a drug industry-backed effort to pass a law that weakened the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s ability to crack down on addictive opioids. Meanwhile, calls are growing to look at the major pharmaceutical companies that have fueled the opioid crisis. A new investigation by Esquire magazine reveals how the secretive Sackler family, owners of the company that invented OxyContin, downplayed the risks of addiction and exploited doctors’ confusion over the drug’s strength….


‘Stop Fawning’: Critics Say McCain’s ‘Jingoistic Revisionism’ Nothing To Applaud

    By Jake Johnson Common Dreams (10/17/17) Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) delivered his “Liberty Medal” acceptance speech at the National Constitution Center Monday night, and his remarks were immediately met with “fawning” praise by former presidents, current elected officials, and cable news talking heads. But critics were quick to warn that such adulation risks further normalizing American interventionism and endless war—both of which McCain has consistently and enthusiastically supported—in the name of rejecting what the Arizona senator labeled “spurious nationalism.” “McCain’s speech was designed to flatter Americans with self-glorifying tales of exceptionalism and nobility. And of course, it worked,” Glenn Greenwald, co-founder of The Intercept, wrote on Twitter Tuesday….


CARTOON: Trump Health Officials Just Quietly Defined Life As ‘Beginning at Conception’ And The Implications Are Huge For All

By Dr. Jen Gunter The Cut (10/16/17) There were so many things to be angry about last week that it’s understandable if you missed this one: The draft of the Department of Health and Human Services 2018–2022 strategic plan contains language that claims life begins at conception. As an ob-gyn, I’m alarmed. You should be, too. The HHS strategic plan is drafted every four years, intended to clarify the administration’s focus; under President Barack Obama, for example, the 2014–2018 plan highly prioritized matters relating to health insurance. The introduction for that plan contained this line: HHS accomplishes its mission through programs and initiatives that cover a wide…


As Trump Denies 17-Year-Old Abortion Access, Court Battle Exposes Broader Problem

  By Jessica Corbett Common Grounds (10/18/17) The Trump administration’s refugee office is preventing an undocumented 17-year-old from receiving a court-approved abortion, and according to documents and reports that have surfaced since the ACLU filed two lawsuits on the teen’s behalf, she’s not the first. ” The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) has effectively banned abortions for undocumented pregnant minors who enter the U.S. alone and are detained in federal immigration shelters by requiring “shelters to get its approval before releasing girls for abortion-related services―approval that officials have refused to grant,” Elise Foley explains for the Huffington Post. Foley describes how the Trump administration’s policy is a departure from…


Corporate Media Owe Some Big Apologies For Getting IRS Scandal Ass Backwards

  By Justin Anderson Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (10/12/17) Back in May 2013, corporate media outlets expressed alarm at a report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) that suggested that from 2010 through 2012, the IRS had applied extra scrutiny to groups applying for tax-exempt status with conservative-sounding names. The report, “based on concerns expressed by members of Congress,” said that 96 groups applying for 501(c)(4) exemptions had been targeted for heightened questioning because of terms like “Tea Party” and “Patriots” in their names. Media harshly condemned the reported targeting, with Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal (5/17/13) calling…


Rigged For The 1%: The Republican Budget Is A ‘Huuge’ Unearned Hand Out To Billionaires

It’s Robin Hood in reverse. By Sen. Bernie Sanders The Guardian (10/16/17) After failing to pass a “healthcare” bill that would have thrown up to 32 million Americans off of health insurance, a bill that was more unpopular than the Wall Street bailout, Donald Trump and the Republican leadership in Congress are back. Now, they are pushing one of the most destructive and unfair budget and tax proposals in the modern history of our country – a plan that would do incalculable harm to tens of millions of working families, our kids, the sick, the elderly and the poor. The…


“Human Flow”: World-Renowned Chinese Artist & Activist Ai Weiwei On His Epic New Documentary On Refugees

  Democracy Now! (10/9/17) The United Nations says there are now more refugees worldwide than at any time since World War II. The journey and struggle of these 65 million refugees is the subject of Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei’s epic new documentary. It’s called “Human Flow.” For the documentary, Ai Weiwei traveled to 23 countries and dozens of refugee camps. We speak to world-renowned Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei. Link to Story and 16-Minute Video ***** Ai Weiwei On His Childhood In A Labor Camp, Art, Activism, Prison & Freedom Democracy Now! (10/9/17) Ai Weiwei has been…


Russia Monitor: Wonder Boy & Other Trumpland Geniuses Crater

    By Dan Peak The Commoner Call (10/19/17) Dear Fellow Readers, Why did Jared Kushner meet with Sergei Gorkov and why is the meeting important? It’s important – this is at the core of Trump-Russia with a focus on Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and Trump’s govern-for-personal-enrichment operation that extends across his family, advisers and cabinet. It will take a few links to fill out the picture, here’s the roadmap: Sergei Gorkov was the head of Vnesheconombank (VEB) when he met with Kushner in December 2016 VEB is a Russian state investment bank that funds Putin projects Gorkov is a…


Interior Sec. Zinke Mocked For Flying Goofy Flag When He Visits Interior Dept. DC Office

“His Royal Heinous Sir Ryan of Zinke, clown prince of Interior, has an official flag that is raised when he appears at his departmental seat.” By Jessica Corbett Common Dreams (10/13/17) The Washington Post on Thursday reported that the Department of the Interior raises the department’s official flag above its Washington, D.C. headquarters to indicate when Secretary Ryan Zinke visits the office. Zinke—who has cultivated a reputation for launching unprecedented attacks on public lands and jettisoning key protections for wildlife—”has revived an arcane military ritual that no one can remember ever happening in the federal government,” the Post reported. The Post explained: “A security staffer takes the elevator to the seventh floor, climbs…


Steve Bannon Goes Another Round With “American Prospect’s” Robert Kuttner

  (Editor’s Note: This interview is worth the listen, however, Robert Kuttner – a pretty standard cookie cutter liberal democrat – is beyond naive on the actual state of American fascist forces propelled by a growing economic crisis. His calls for Barack Obama to come to the “rescue” misses the mark on what the democrats need. Besides, Obama is too busy cashing $400,000 Wall Street checks  and hobnobbing with Virgin Airlines billionaire Richard Branson to say nothing of the fact that his record of spineless betrayal of the working class and democratic party ideals paved the way for Trump. A starry-eyed…