#WeThePeople candidates with Primaries on June 5th, 2018.

Part 1

Katie Dunne, Passionate believer in democracy and member of UHM's Digital Media Content Crew.

Jared Pettinato on Gun control, the Military industrial complex, the Budget, Healthcare, Pipelines, Renewable energy, Education and Unions.

Jared Pettinato is running for the position of Montana’s Representative at-Large.  If elected, this Constitutional lawyer, who spent 9 years at the U.S. Department of Justice, defending public lands in Montana and throughout the United States of America, would become the sole Representative in the U.S. House, for the 1 million Montanans, and the State he clearly loves and wishes to represent.  Jared is a proud descendant of generations of railroad workers, a great drummer (check the video at the end of this interview), has a very pleasant smile and manner, and a sense of humor.  He is one of 5 Democrats, 1 Republican incumbent (Greg Gianforte – richest man in Congress and one who accepts huge sums from the N.R.A.) and 1 Libertarian in this race.
 
Bernie Sanders’ movement renewed interest in politics among the people and has brought them out. That said, Democrats have zero name recognition in Montana.  There is though agreement among them, that they can only do a better job than the Republicans, Jared tells us.
 
On the issue of gun control what does Jared have to say?  He does not seem to be impressed by the fact that Congress prohibited the study of health impacts resulting from changes to the gun laws.  He would start he tells us, by implementing the gun laws that we have.  The Republicans are undermining the funding, leadership and effectiveness of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, he adds.  Next, he would aim to keep guns out of the hands of those who are dangerous (terrorists, criminals, those who commit acts of domestic violence, those who have mental difficulties…).  We are going in the wrong direction just now.  States are expanding gun rights, even as we have more problems with guns, he says.
John mentions that other countries (even those which love guns) have strict gun laws and ban civilians from owning assault weapons.  The result is very few deaths in comparison to the United States.  Jared would like to take a closer look at the numbers and is wary lest anyone wish to ban all guns, but he feels that that which works the best elsewhere is what should be implemented here.
 
The conversation moves on to the military industrial complex and the military budget.  Jared says that « It needs to be proportional to…the threats America faces. »  We shouldn’t be actively involved everywhere. « Congress has abdicated its responsibility to oversee the military actions that the United States is taking…  (It) needs to step in and do something about that. »   We’ve got better ways to spend our money. There is so much inefficiency involved here.   Jared adds that he would cut the military budget significantly. He knows though that wherever there are factories and jobs on the ground, people will defend whichever program it is.
 
On Health and Mental Health care, and the very high pharmaceutical costs, Jared says… « I want Americans to pay the same amount they could pay in any developed nation – as the market would allow … We can push downward on health care premiums by bringing more people into the system…The United States can pay new enrollees for enrolling – just as banks pay new customers for opening bank accounts.  This $200 payment will encourage them to overcome the administrative burden of applying. »
 
On cannabis: leave it to each State Jared says.  Medical cannabis he agrees with, recreational he is open to.
 
Is there a need for the federal government to help out small business owners with regard to healthcare costs?  Yes, Jared says, in some ways that is the greatest benefit of Single-payer healthcare.  It actually decreases the costs of goods for American products and helps America compete with goods from overseas.  We are presently at a competitive disadvantage with overseas companies.  John adds that the money can come from the oversized military budget.
 
And on to pipelines…Corporations aren’t required to monitor, secure or maintain their pipelines, which are everywhere.  We need stronger enforcement and stronger laws requiring them to do so (risk of leakages into water…) so that we can protect our natural resources he says.
Fuel cells, wind farms and solar are our future.  Jared says he needs to think about whether to ban fracking, but adds that there is a lot of risk to our water involved, and that poisonous chemicals are being pumped into the soil.  I’m hoping he says that we can move away from gasoline entirely. 
 
It’s getting harder to live a rural lifestyle, Jared says on the subject of renewable energy and climate change.  He is very interested in wind energy and there is a ton of wind in Montana which could bring « the best jobs in town » to rural towns.  This would make money for landowners, and tax money as rent for the schools and for the State.  « Making money out of thin air » Jared calls it.
The next figure he mentions is shocking.  1.2 million (out of a total of 93 million) acres of forest burned in Montana in August of last year.  How come?  Wildfire season!  We created the conditions that generate high severity wildfires Jared says, and we have a duty to fix the problem.  For 80 years we took out the largest trees in the forest, and by suppressing the wildfires, fuel (downed branches and trees) built up on the floor of the forest and spindly trees grew there too.  This fuel catches fire easily in the heat, and sets the forest canopy alight.  In the 1990s 16% of the Forest Service budget was required to fight these wildfires.  It is now over half and is expected to involve two thirds of their budget by 2025.  It is a downward spiral. Congress gives the Forest Service a reduced amount of money and with that they are supposed to stop the wildfires, but what they really need to do is to maintain the forest and reduce the risk of out-of-control wildfires in the future.
 
 « Science to me (Jared Pettinato says)…it’s our method of predicting the future, and so when 97% of the people are telling you the future is going this direction... » That’s good enough for him!
The Paris climate agreement is not enough though, and backing out of it was the wrong direction for the U.S. to go in.  Although positive steps have been taken lately that are helping us go in the right direction now, Jared still fears that we are already a bit too late.  I’m not sure that we are doing enough to stop climate change at this point he says.  If it’s too late we can retreat (Miami…), can try to mitigate (walls…), can use natural systems (rivers…).  John is hopeful that technology will save the day.  Jared cheers up and starts to talk about solar batteries and pumped hydroelectric storage.  This is a decentralized system which takes water from downhill and pumps it uphill. You lose about 25% and can store the rest of the energy…and turn it back into electricity (when required).
 
On education: Private schools are fine, but taxpayers don’t need to subsidize them.  Keep public money in public schools. « They’re great.  I loved my teachers and I support them and want them to continue to have unions.  They deserve a collective voice. Shareholders already have one: The Corporation.  Government already has one: The government.  And what about the workers’ collective voice?  « Otherwise you can divide and conquer and extract resources from the less powerful minority. » Right to work is simply « Right to get paid less » he states.
 
Jared isn’t in favor of using GMOs, they are a risk and scary to boot.  Organic farming is the next wave he says.  Broadband for farmers is a necessity too.
 
There is frustration in Montana, in particular with regard to healthcare and guns.  People are also working hard and not getting as much as they used to.  Jared is for increasing the minimum wage, but hasn’t put a figure on it in his own mind.  The cost of living must be taken into account.  John says that had the minimum wage increased with inflation, it would now be close to $26.  Jared sees Unions bargaining for higher wages.  He also speaks of Sector Unions (all hardware employees for example, rather than store by store – collective bargaining)
 
What of caps on CEO wages?  Pushing people down to and below survival wages is an unacceptable result of capitalism, Jared tells us.  Again we need unions, and to be tougher on Corporations.  They don’t need reduced taxes.
 
Why vote for Jared Pettinato and not the incumbent, Greg Gianforte? Well Jared says, Gianforte makes reference to large sums of money, but I, saved the taxpayers a great deal of money while working at the Department of Justice.  I have plans to create jobs in the State in the wind energy sector… which Greg Gianforte does not have.  I would also do something different with regard to the wildfires which cost Montana $240 million last year in lost tourism revenue, and a lot of jobs too.
 
 « I’ve spent my adult life working in the public interest.  I’ve got real ideas for moving Montana forward. »
 
The links for Jared Pettinato are in the video description.  Good luck!

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Maria Estrada on SB 562, Environmental Pollution, Corruption and Confronting Anthony Rendon.

John Ellis begins this #WeThePeople interview a little differently.  He refers to when Uphill Media was still Bernie2016tv, and his own language was more colorful, and points out that as time went by, he came to realize how often people were offended by “words”.  This, at a time when we have “politicians choosing to murder people, either by passing legislation so that we bomb them somewhere, or passing legislation so that we eliminate protections for their air, or water, or their ground, or not passing legislation that would provide all of them healthcare - which ends up murdering people.  So, our politicians by their actions have been far more offensive than any of the words that come out of my mouth, or Maria Estrada’s.  The thing about Maria, was she had the courage from day one to say that!  So, I am very honored to welcome to this program, Maria Estrada, who is running for California’s 63rd Assembly District…”  Maria is up against Anthony Rendon.
 
Why did Maria decide to run for election, after raising kids, becoming a grandma, working as an accountant…?  Well, she was very involved in the Bernie campaign, and one of the founding members of Compton for Bernie.  (Bernie and his family - nice people, Maria says - followed their Compton page and asked if they could send them all shirts!)  She had always been political, but had to wait until her children grew up to have the time.  She moved to Compton and got involved.  She tells us that in 2016 she was protesting outside the L.A. Convention Center, where people are sworn in as citizens.  There were the Republican, the Democratic, and the Compton for Bernie stands…and everyone was coming to their stand and taking pictures with them.  It was a really exciting time.  Maria wasn’t a delegate herself, but she raised funds for delegates, mostly younger ones who were not even in her district.  She did go to Philly though and sat there watching how it all went down, (it was) so corrupt.  This is the United States of America, she thought!  Wasserman-Schultz had to resign and Clinton (just) put her on her campaign.  Maria was livid.  “Everybody got that sick feeling, and we were all disappointed, and shocked, and hurt and mad…”
 
Maria Estrada had become a Democrat in order to vote for Bernie.  She left the Party.  Then she met Linda (Basset?) in Banning Park, Wilmington on Labor Day Weekend.  Maria was there to protest all the police killings.  Linda’s reaction to a comment from someone, about HRC, made clear to Maria that she had found a kindred spirit. They got talking and before Maria knew it, Linda asked her to (join) her on the L.A. Central Counting Committee.  Maria had to sign up for the Democrats again to do so. Central Counting Committee (meetings) were uncomfortable, awkward, cultish, and says Maria, the people listen and clap like seals.  Linda strongly encouraged Maria at this point to run to become a delegate.  She did so, but lost the election.  Mike Gipson (64th  State Assembly District) rigged the whole thing Maria says, and goes on to explain what happened.  She says there are a lot of people who have been in the party for years and who are just not happy.  She was welcomed by those and found another way to become a delegate.  There are though, others in the party and Maria has no patience for their arrogance, their condescension.  Right now what we are hearing from them is that Donald Trump will win again if we don’t do what they want.  Neither John nor Maria are impressed.
 
On Anthony Rendon, Maria says that when he shelved the bill (SB 562 - Medicare for All) he literally stopped the legislative process.  The reasons given were ridiculous.  He is the Speaker of the California State Assembly, one of the 3 most powerful men in the State.  Single-payer healthcare is part of the California Platform, but the Party does not push for it, she says.  John tells her that they don’t have to, that the Platform just states what the people believe.  The money is there for whatever they want to fund.  70% of the proposed cost of the bill is paid through Medicare and Medicaid funds by way of a federal waiver.   You can’t blame Donald Trump for something that hasn’t been presented to him, Maria pursues.  California Democrats are the ones blocking the bill.  Rendon shelved it so that it can’t be amended, can’t be changed… nothing can be done to it.  He’s failing to do his job and obstructing the whole process.  Every city, and every county and the entire State, has part of their budget for healthcare for the employees.  That part would be completely eliminated.  That’s a lot of money.   The bill also covers on-site work injuries, so workers’ compensation would be eliminated, because that’s covered.  In the State of CA, they have one of the highest workers’ compensation rates there are.  They are not telling businesses how much they would save. The healthcare and pharmaceutical lobbying firms are very very powerful, and these politicians are in their pockets.  Maria isn’t impressed with those politicians in CA who are jumping on the Bernie bandwagon, and proclaiming to be for Medicare for All. “They’re saying that because it’s convenient for them, because it’s politics and they’re pandering to their constituency, but the fact is, if you’re not fighting for it right now, in this State, then you’re not going to fight (for) it at the federal level.”
Maria supplied Uphill Media with a pamphlet in English and Spanish about (and produced by?) Anthony Rendon, thanking him for fighting for “access” to healthcare for Californians, and claiming that he is “on our side”.
 
We all have access right now says Maria, the point is can we pay for it?  If I don’t have insurance from the company, I pay $872 a month.  She refers to deductibles, to her recent $100 bill from a trip to the E.R., and the average income in her district being much lower than the ($30,000?) for a family of 3, if you don’t count the doctors and nurses living in a particular area.  (Audio issues here.  Please comment below if anything is incorrect.)
 
John shows a slide.  The information was gathered by the 28ers (Riverside).  2531 people have died in CA since Anthony Rendon shelved SB 562 on June 26th 2017.  The “body count” updates daily.  Maria speaks with disgust about families being charged $60 an hour to play soccer in a public park.  And what if they get hurt?  It’s ridiculous, she says.  Elderly people with medical bills are reduced to selling their homes.  They lose all their assets, everything they have worked for their whole lives.  Most of the money raised from GoFundMe is for people’s healthcare Maria says.  If the Democrats talk about it publicly says John, they expose the scam...and how this money is taken away from us in various ways.
 
Maria‘s district covers South, South East and South Central L.A. where they have the highest rates of cancer, and a higher rate of allergies and asthma in kids than elsewhere.  That is environmental asthma, Maria emphasizes.  John shows a slide with a great quote from her, on all the things she refuses to accept for the people of the 63rd District.  It is titled:  For me this is not a game and starts with “I refuse to accept this is the best we can do…”  She explains that her parents came from Mexico and lived the American Dream (but they’re getting poisoned says John).  Mom is the exception to the rule, Maria continues. A family member just died in October of pancreatic cancer, they caught it too late.  He had to go to Mexico to get treated, and died (in pain) on his return to San Diego.  John tells her about Scott Galindez and how he had a job and insurance, but still died when he was denied a kidney by corporate interests.
 
Rendon has really failed the Community on environmental issues.  Paramount, Compton and then Lynwood are back to back and there is a class action suit going on against 7 companies who are emitting lead, and other toxins into the environment.  There are a lot of people sick with cancer there.  The community is tired of it.  The 63rd Assembly District is a magnet for corruption.  Maria talks about a recall effort for the city council members in Paramount who have all taken money and gifts from these companies, and, the city council members in one of the poorest cities, Bell, paying themselves 6 figure salaries and running the city into the ground.  People ended up in prison.  In Maywood the FBI raided the mayor’s house, and city hall, and found $20 000 in cash.  They are all being investigated.
 
The cities in Assembly District 63 are home to oil refineries, metal factories, battery recyclers and a trucking thoroughfare from the Port of Long Beach.  The rates for diabetes, hypertension, HIV/AIDS and a long list of other illnesses are far higher than elsewhere in the country, shockingly so!  Most of the mayors and city council members have already endorsed Anthony Rendon.  These politicians (public servants, says John) “should be kissing our a**, not the other way round!” Maria says.  John quotes Jim Hightower on agitators:  “Agitators get things clean.  That’s what’s in a washing machine to get the dirt out.”  You’re an agitator. And I really appreciate you being on (the show), he says.
 
John returns to the health statistics for the district.  Maria tells him that she approached Anthony Rendon at a meet-and-greet and asked him whether it was true that he was considering releasing the bill and letting it go to committee.  She had heard that he was considering doing so, because he was concerned about a recall effort against him.  His tone changed and he answered “Absolutely not!  The nurses are liars, they’re lying.”  He got really angry.  He takes no responsibility and blames everyone else.  If the bill was written poorly, then he could work it out, get help, but he just doesn’t want to, and that’s clear, Maria comments to John.  So she said to Anthony Rendon “Let’s be clear…  It’s not Donald Trump and it’s not the GOP that’s blocking this bill, and blocking the people in the 63rd and the people in the State of California from having healthcare, it’s the Democrats, but you specifically…” Anthony Rendon claimed that that wasn’t a fair assessment, and Maria continued “…but it’s accurate”.  And she told him clearly that she thought it was criminal that he knew 5 years before, when he took the position, about the environmental hazards that these families were dealing with.  The Exide plant which operated for 33 years without a permit, still hasn’t been done.  There are houses (with children in them) that still have lead.  None of this is new environmental damage, John says.  Maria ended what she had to say to Anthony Rendon with “That’s why I’m running against you.  You should be ashamed of yourself.”
 
Maria never thought she would run for office, but many people asked her to do so, and she feels duty bound to fight for the People.  She says that when she was a kid her mom didn’t work, but now everybody has to. Rents are through the roof and folks have got to make dinner and take care of their kids, tired though they are, when they come home.  Corrupt people have a stranglehold on these underprivileged communities, where many have come from Latin American countries, may be used to corruption and don’t want to get involved, others can’t because they are barely scraping by.  City council meetings, mean getting a babysitter, and the city council people are horrendous, they treat people terribly and they intimidate them, she tells us. 
 
In response to Metal Head (in YT chat) Maria says that the 63rd District is approximately 76% Latino and voted 60% Rendon in 2014.  I have been out canvassing, and nobody knows who Anthony Rendon is!   Maria goes on to explain that she feels as though posing for photos with constituents, when they are confiding in you is exploitative. She is not comfortable with that.  John brings her back to what she felt when she met Bernie, which she did a few times. He says he’s jealous that she did, and asks whether it was an uplifting, inspirational experience? It obviously was, especially when Bernie clearly went out of his way to shake hands with her.  Another time someone called out to Bernie, Maria says, to say that she was one of his delegates and his face just lit up and he hugged the woman… He’s such a regular, very affectionate guy, she says.  My point Maria, says John, is that this is exactly how people feel when they meet you.  You come to their neighborhood and you give them hope.  You tell them the truth, and so when they want a photo, it is for real.  They want to keep it and be inspired by you.   You’re not like the corporate politicians.
 
Maria grew up in a tough neighborhood, with violence, helicopters at night, police sirens… She may not be proud of the trouble she used to get into, but knows that that also made her the person she is today.  She worries that it isn’t a healthy environment, and that the U.S. is also putting people elsewhere in situations where they’re living in violence because of what we are doing in their countries. She eventually married an Anglo and moved out, to a very quiet, white neighborhood.  That is where she raised her children.  She wanted them away from the violence.  John and Maria then talk about the real difference between the two neighborhoods... economic disparity and environmental racism, money in other words.  As Maria says, they don’t have manufacturers with their buildings right next to homes in Ventura County.  It’s set up that way.  It’s not an accident.  Here Maria references Standing Rock, and why the Pipeline didn’t end up going through Bismarck.  Maria met some Lakota people in Philly and she has been up there in Pine Ridge.  She compares the treatment of the indigenous people to the institutional racism that Blacks and Latinos have put up with. They get killed at a higher rate by the police and it is never reported.  To boot, there will always be some of your own community that will sell you out, Maria says.  You see the same thing on mainstream media John says, certain persons of color lying through their teeth, repeating a corporate narrative.
 
John suggests that Maria, Stephen Jaffe and a couple of others come do a California round-table.  He mentions Progressive candidates such as Sarah Smith in WA, and Joyce Judy in OR, being in a primary challenge with their democratic opponents, and not getting access to the VAN.  Maria is suing the CA Democratic Party.  She got the required number of signatures, plus one, so that Rendon would be forced to get 60% of the votes at the California Democratic Party Convention in order to get the Democratic Party endorsement.  Two people said afterwards that they wanted to remove their names, one at least was intimidated by Rendon’s staff, and finally by Rendon himself, she says.  After this episode, and blocking the bill, Anthony Rendon actually went on stage in L.A. at the Women’s March!!  He was heckled off the stage.  There follows a discussion as to language and actions and how offensive they are and are not.  Maria has had all sorts of language thrown at her, but she’s not backing down.  “The fact that I’m here, if it offends you… Good!” So much for an open Democratic Party!
 
Maria says Latinos have the majority in CA.  They have the power, what they lack is the will.  We have to get rid of the sell-outs, she points out.  If she gets elected Maria would like to help activists take over every school board and every city council in her district.  What we need she says, are real people who want to help their district, to improve the education people get, clean up the parks… real people who are not selling us out to these companies and corporations. 
 
Maria doesn’t hold back on the Democrats and President Obama.  Television keeps telling us that Donald Trump is destroying our country when in fact, the State of CA has been f** sideways for a while and it’s been run by Democrats.  They aren’t really Democrats, says John.  A Democrat says Maria, is a stone’s throw away from a Republican.  They have the same donors.  Democrats are pro-choice and gay rights, so am I, but I’m 50 and I’m not gay, so?  However, I do have grandchildren. I don’t want them or anyone else’s children to have to drink brown water coming out of the sinks, like in Flint and all over this country.  The infrastructure is falling apart and yet we are giving tax breaks to these companies.  In the 50s the corporations paid over 30% of the net taxes in the country, now it’s under 10%!  Since Reagan broke the Air Traffic Controllers strike, the decline of the unions and of the middle class is in direct correlation.  And they’re trying to pass these Right-to-work laws that will literally take more rights away from nurses, manufacturing workers… Anything to capitalize on our labor, increase their profit, and still take away our healthcare and any benefits we have, so that their stockholders look good. Workers at McDonald’s don’t deserve a decent wage?  Who deserves portfolios in the hundreds of millions?  What are they doing to earn that?  The biggest transfer of wealth in the history of this country happened under Obama.  People get offended when I say that, but those are the facts.  She speaks of Obama dropping his first drone on his third day in office, and his putting Tim Geithner in, and that speech to the unions:  “We all have to give up something.”  Maria continues “What did the wealthy give up? The first thing the police did when the crash happened was go surround Wall Street and protect it.  That’s why they’re here, to protect the wealthy, not us!”
 
It’s so refreshing (to listen to you) but we’re out of time.  “You’re one of the first real progressive candidates that has come on and really spoke harsh about Obama, because I think we all need to wake up...” enthuses John.  “Look what happened in Libya” says Maria.  “He listened to HRC and took out Gaddafi and now there are people being sold on the open market.  That’s heinous” she says, “and they worship Kissinger and Kissinger is to Latino Americanos and Asians what Hitler is to Jews”, she points out.
 
I recommend everybody see the movie Harvest of Empire.  If you’re pissed off because there are too many immigrants, first of all you shouldn’t have invaded a country full of brown people and stolen (their oil?). Secondly, “that’s what this country has always been about, that’s what the military is about, imperialism, nationalism, exploiting other countries and their resources.”  “You’re amazing.  You’re on fire and I hope you win!” says John, and he thanks her for running against Rendon.
 
Obama is a good-looking man, well-spoken, eloquent and classy, who “deported 3 million immigrants, mostly Mexicans, and yet I’m supposed to be upset because Trump said he grabbed a woman’s p****, and Mexicans are this that and the other.  When he gets to the (same) level of deportations as Obama, then come talk to me.”  ICE though, John says, is a horrific organization… needs to be abolished.  He calls it the American Gestapo, Maria agrees.
 
Jeff Green and his crew in Riverside created an app and gifted it to me to phone bank and canvass she tells us.
 
What a candidate! Maria Estrada is the voice of the People.  The crowd in YouTube chat loved her, and even suggested she run for President!  Maria is a big Green party supporter too.  She is a fighter, and she’ll have them shaking in their shoes.  Maria really is a breath of fresh air!
 
Links are in the video description.  Good luck Maria!

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Josh Jones on Human rights, Divesting from fossil fuels, Ground water and
the huge Unhoused Population.

#WeThePeople interviewed Green Party candidate Josh Jones who is running for Governor of California.  He is a People-powered candidate, who has a history of doing grassroots democracy and promises he will always answer questions, from the heart and in a spontaneous way.
 
Josh grew up in a fire-fighter’s family, is 4th generation CA, and has lived all over the State.  He grew up camping out in the Sierras.  He loves to fish, ski, and surf.  He studied geology, hydrology, was a solar electric designer for 4 years… Check out his candidate URL, it’s pretty cool!
 
He tells us about his political journey over the last few years, and how he eventually had enough of the barriers being thrown up at every level in front of corporate-free candidates, and of Democratic Party shenanigans.  He joined the Green Party.
 
 “Our platform is based on two principles: maximize equality of opportunity and minimize harm.  We take no money from corporations, nor do we think they would want to donate to us anyway.”
 
He wants to raise a dialogue (about Berniecrat and Jill Stein type issues, private prisons, slavery…).  The Green Party is not just about the environment, it’s also about human rights, worker rights, labor rights.  Josh intends going to every county in CA to discuss these topics.
 
He tells us that he likes to, and has always talked to people everywhere and he doesn’t need to come up with all of the solutions himself.  I ask those I meet “What are the problems in your county?  And what are the solutions you already know?”  And Josh synthesizes that information.
 
There are simple solutions to many things.  Don’t let greed be your starting point, Josh says.   CAL FIRE department knows where there are going to be problems in the future.  We need to stop planting trees so close together that they kill each other competing for water.  Let’s work with municipalities to make sure that their municipal codes follow CAL FIRE codes!  We must be much more forward-thinking.  Fire-fighters should have time-off and unions.  It’s a high-stress job. 
 
Life, and crossing North American borders was simpler before NAFTA.  There has to be a pathway to citizenship for people of Latin American descent.  They belong here just as much as we do, Josh says.  And we all need the ability to migrate for work.  He speaks of crossing the Mexican border faster if one can pay (fast lanes).
Capital he tells us is free to cross borders, destroy economies… and move on, but not human beings.  It should be the other way around.
 
Josh Jones is for divesting from fossil fuels.  The Green Party New Deal is pushing to do this by 2030.  He wants sustainable energies…solar, geothermal, wind turbines, tidal and wave (distributed power) generation… The
California National Guard should be deployed to national disasters…Puerto Rico, and not Afghanistan!
 
Can we shift the CA economy away from fossil fuels and to green renewable energy?  Absolutely, Josh suggests wave generators along the coast of CA in action day and night.  That could power a massive amount of CA, he says.  We shouldn’t destroy ground water through fracking…I think that is a way for them to privatize water.  We would have to pay to get clean water afterwards!  Nestle, says John.  Yes, Josh continues, and it is happening right here in CA and right now.  We need to stop privatizing everything…solar is cheaper than gas turbines now, even the bankers are saying, let’s go with solar.  If this hasn’t happened yet, it is for reasons of greed.  If you can divest away from it, profits will dry up, and then we will suddenly switch over to renewables.
 
What of the huge unhoused population of CA?  Josh says it doesn’t help the homeless to have affordable housing built.  It’s like “access” to healthcare.  The State needs to build public housing (like after WW2) without trying to make a profit on it.  You pay for it by doing smart taxes and making sure you apply them properly.  Tax oil, Roll back Prop 13 on commercial buildings… “Almost everybody doesn’t have a problem with (their) taxes going up if they get something for their taxes” (such as healthcare…).  The money is in the system, but is being spent in a sloppy way just now. 
 
All links for Josh Jones are in the video description.  Good luck Josh!

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Shahid Buttar helps us better understand the U.S. Constitution, and how to legally improve the lives of the People.

Shahid Buttar is running for office in the 12th Congressional District of California, and he was interviewed by #WeThePeople on April 4th, 2018.  He has an excellent campaign ad, from which we learn that he has been an activist for over 20 years, and describes himself as a DJ, an MC, a public interest advocate, an educator and a grassroots organizer.  He has an inspirational command of the English language and has written and spoken across the United States on behalf of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, where he has worked since 2015 as EFF’s Director of Grassroots Advocacy.  He is running for office because he doesn’t feel that San Francisco or its values of transparency, freedom, inclusion and opportunity are being represented in Washington D.C.  Shahid’s family emigrated first from Pakistan to England and then from there to the US, to escape discrimination.  They lived the American dream for over a decade and then lost their house just as he started college.  Shahid has been building social movements in his city since 2003.  He has over the years fought for San Francisco’s rights in the courts, the policy sphere, the media and on the streets.  He has been involved with Occupy, the Immigrant Rights Movement, the Digital Rights Community and the Movement for Black Lives. For Shahid, resistance is not just a hashtag, as he says.  He is a Constitutional lawyer and a non-profit leader with experience.
 
What made Shahid decide to run now?  Watching Congress voting to extend and expand the surveillance powers available to the Trump Administration (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act), he says, and Nancy Pelosi undermining a proposed warrant requirement which would have constrained mass surveillance by the NSA, the DEA and the FBI.  This, followed by the occasion where Pelosi read for 8 hours from letters from immigrant students, and then voted in a backroom deal to throw them under a bus!  Being an immigrant himself, particularly steeped in mass surveillance and human rights issues (both of which she is particularly weak in), he could not stand aside after that.  San Francisco, Shahid says, needs an unapologetic, skilled, experienced, progressive champion, who will promote its values.
 
In answer to John’s question, Shahid says that he has never been afraid to walk the streets of any American city, and quotes FDR “I dare say that the greatest thing we have to fear is fear itself.”  He explains that that is one of the reasons we are in this mess. “ If you step back from the xenophobia and targeting immigrants to just think about the extent to which American policy is filtered through the lens of fear, and how much of our military industrial complex is rooted in fear of unknown threats, when we have known threats often paid for by our tax dollars that are abusing us.  The chimera of fear and the way it is co-opted and abused and taken advantage of, whether by corporations or by government intelligence agencies, I think is a big part of the problem.” 
 
John asks what can be done about gun and police violence, and about the connection between the two.  Shahid says that it is a no-brainer to support a ban on assault-style rifles.  There is no reason that civilians should have them.  He then tells us that he recently got to describe his Second Amendment theory on national radio.  It goes like this.  “A lot of Conservatives are concerned about Second Amendment rights and to the extent they locate gun control as a threat to their interests there is a little bit of a bait-and-switch in that they are barking up the wrong tree.  The Second Amendment isn’t actually about weapons.  The text of the amendment refers to them, but the purpose of the Second Amendment is a right to resistance against the federal government.  It’s the Constitutional escape hatch passed at the time of the Founding for colonies that were fearful that the federal government would run roughshod over their rights.  It is why the text of the Second Amendment grounds the right to bear arms, particularly in a well-regulated militia.  In 2008 the Supreme Court radically reinterpreted it and created an individual right to weapons for the first time.”  So what inhibits your right to resistance today?  The answer can’t be gun control.  “The reason that there is no meaningful right to resistance today is because the Police have become militarized, and the militarization of Police presents the threat to Second Amendment interests that many of its defenders mistake for being gun control.  I do think that the opportunity to diffuse Second Amendment concerns, to recognize common cause in the liberty interest and to unite that coalition against the militarization of the Police is one of the political opportunities of our generation.”
 
Shahid reminds us that there are people on the Right who are also willing to fight the NSA, and hopes that Progressives can do to the Democratic Party, what the Tea Party did to the GOP (i.e. take over the Party).  Bernie demonstrated in 2016 he says, that the Democratic base has not entirely forgotten progressivism.  He adds though that some of the party must be willing to maintain an attachment to liberty because progressivism without liberty principles is dangerous.  He thinks that there is an opportunity, particularly for a progressive challenging a bipartisan corporate establishment, to put the interests of people before profit, and to champion those principles and the policies that would promote communities and families and give people opportunities to pursue their own happiness.
 
What can we do about Police violence?
*Firstly*, says Shahid, we could finally enact the End Racial Profiling Act, and start collecting data.  Presently we have to turn to a British newspaper to get statistics about how many Americans get killed by police each year!!  ERPA would give citizens a right of private action.  They would no longer have to prove Discriminatory Intent of the government agent.  This requirement is the hole into which most civil rights claims sink.  Disparate Impact (the statistical proof of discrimination which the law would require the State to collect and make available) would be enough to state a claim in court.
*Secondly* create a national registry of killer cops.  Once fired from a police department you should not be hired by another.
*Thirdly*, we need to the legalize cannabis at the federal level, Shahid tells us.  This is a crucial leg to take out of the stool of the prison industrial complex.  It would diminish civil asset forfeitures which are often justified on the basis of the drug war.  If you legalize some of those underlying offenses, then the law enforcement abuses that rely on those criminalizations as a foundation, start to get addressed too.
Do you realize how many jobs and how much revenue would be lost if you took away the criminalization of pot across the United States, asks John?  Only in law enforcement, Shahid replies.  Think about how many green jobs would be created across the cannabis industry supply chain.
And I would add that we need an Independent Review (of the Police departments) John comments.  Shahid agrees and adds that Civilian Review Boards often don’t have adequate resources and in those cases they become ruses.  So what is necessary is an *independent authority with investigating powers*!  Shahid is excited at the thought of an opportunity to participate in oversight hearings as an interlocutor, to be able to ask the Attorney General questions under oath. 
 
There follows a discussion about the Bush v. Gore Decision, which revealed a blatantly politicized Supreme Court jurisprudence with in retrospect incredibly profound consequences, Shahid says.  Now we have torture with impunity, profiling unapologetically… the prison industrial surveillance complex available to a criminal kleptocrat at the head of the executive branch.  One of Shahid’s proposals is an 18 year rather than lifetime term for the judges.  The Democrats should have appointed very progressive judges, given how far to the right the Republican appointees were.  Shahid also tells us that most Americans are not aware that about 11 years ago the Supreme Court basically overruled (by circumventing) Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board of Education.  There is a jurisprudential revolution that is well under way and you see it all the time, Shahid states.
 
John says that for him a greater overarching issue is the lack of education of the populace and the inability to handle so much information coming at us all at once.  The facade came down all in one go.  They agree that MSM has let the People down by not keeping them informed in the way they should, but Shahid also reminds us of President Eisenhower’s Farewell Address to the American People, where he spoke of the need for “an alert and knowledgeable citizenry to defend democracy in America.”  We are neither, he says…
 
Shahid tells us in response to a YT question, that the Fourth Amendment has been viciously eroded, in the way for example that the Police have impunity when retaliating against citizens exercising their First Amendment rights (such as recording police activities).  They’ve emboldened themselves, intimidated the public and extended their authorities by arresting people… without corresponding jurisprudence.  He describes as a frontal attack the NSA and the idea that you have the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizures, which is much more than privacy… It is the freedom of expression on which our democracy rests.  It is ultimately the opportunity for democracy to exist.  We flirt with losing those protections, he says.  Shahid certainly favors police accountability for violence, for profiling, although charging police with tyranny might be a bit of a stretch (YT).  He would also like to reform “Qualified Immunity” which is the defense the Police use if you sue for physical harm.  He’d like it to be illegal per se.  There should be liability as a Matter of Law for any police officer who kills an unarmed person. 
 
Shahid has answers for all the questions thrown at him by the YT audience.  Medicare for All is a first important step to begin to address the problems we have in our capitalist society (and towards building in practice alternative distribution systems).  He speaks of a distributive justice scheme that unites Smith and Marx.  It looks like a market-based system with very robust equality of opportunity.  We’ve never had that before, and a system that eliminated entitlements for established capital could be much more just, while also claiming the efficiency of capitalism… but I’m not running on that, he says.  A single government purchaser for all healthcare services would drive down the cost of healthcare dramatically.  It would also satisfy a core human right recognized by most civilized countries, by keeping a lot of people off the street and, it would improve the competitiveness of US businesses both large and small.  
 
Again, in answer to a YT question, Shahid refers to Eisenhower speaking about how the emergence of defense plus the profit motive, would shift the character of the country.  He describes it “having a spiritual impact of the union of industry and defense”.  This ultimately is what is driving the aggrandizement of executive power and the marginalization of Congress (with respect to its war-making authority).  He also refers to the War Powers Act (1970s) which came about in response to the abuses pervading the war in Vietnam, which was based on false pretenses and amounted to colonial aggression.
 
The corruption of money in politics is Shahid’s core issue.  He has fought for campaign finance reform.  “There are a whole host of threats to the integrity of our elections: campaign finance inequities… voter suppression… gerrymandering… all of these issues would represent potential violations of anti-trust laws if anti-trust laws applied to political and not just economic markets.”  One of the things Shahid would like to do in Congress would be to extend existing anti-trust protections so that federal judges despite the challenges would be in a position to defend competition in political markets. 
There is not a lot that Congress can do to advance public financing of elections.  That is easier to do at a State level, according to Shahid.  That’s good says John, that’s possible.  On issues of policing and election law for instance, Shahid says the States have way more authority than the federal government. “From a public policy standpoint it is critical to make sure that elections and candidacy is available to all people not just anointed representatives of corporate interests.”  Conservatives have turned their sights both on the federal judiciary and on State legislatures as crucial levers to promote their policy mission and the Clinton and Obama administrations haven’t responded in kind. That’s one reason I’m very happy to live in California where we have a more enlightened State legislative process than in many parts of the country.
 
Wow, what an amazing candidate!  John, Laura and everyone else has learned such a lot during this interview.  Shahid Buttar is a very interesting, brilliant person, who has led a fascinating life.  He has a sense of humor and another talent too… because before law school, Shahid’s activism took the form of politicized spoken word poetry, so he’s a documentary performance poet first.  The closing song is Shahid’s own, and it is about why the agencies need to be erased.
 
The links are in the video description.  Good luck Shahid!

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