This week, I have been mostly reading:

• Top Nancy Pelosi Aide Privately Tells Insurance Executives Not to Worry About Democrats Pushing “Medicare for All” — Ryan Grim in the Intercept: Less than a month after Democrats — many of them running on “Medicare for All” — won back control of the House of Representatives in November, the top health policy aide to then-prospective House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with Blue Cross Blue Shield executives and assured them that party leadership had strong reservations about single-payer health care and was more focused on lowering drug prices, according to sources familiar with the meeting. Pelosi adviser Wendell Primus detailed five objections to Medicare for All and said that Democrats would be allies to the insurance industry in the fight against single-payer health care.
• You Should Never Have Trusted Flickr to Protect Your Cherished Photos — April Glaser at Slate: While no one can question the convenience of pulling up an old photo on demand, Flickr’s ultimatum—pay up or go—serves as a useful reminder that the free platforms we’ve entrusted to save our memories aren’t made for us. They’re made for the people who profit off our usage. These platforms can be sold. They can erase what we’ve saved. They can charge us later for access to our own photos, or to store more of them. They can change their terms of service and hand all of our precious memories to the police, use facial recognition to map our relationships, or use the photos for ads—as Instagram opened up its terms of service to be able to do in 2012, ditto Yahoo in 2014. Yahoo actually sold users’ Creative Commons–licensed photos as wall art without giving the photographers any of the profits.
• In Venezuela, White Supremacy is a Key to Trump’s Coup — Greg Palast: In my interviews with Chavez for BBC beginning in 2002, he talked with humor about the fury of a white ruling class finding itself displaced by dark-skinned man who was so visibly “Negro e Indio,” a label he wore loudly and proudly. Why did the poor love Chavez? (And love is not too strong a word.) As even the US CIA’s surprisingly honest Fact Book states: “Social investment in Venezuela during the Chavez administration reduced poverty from nearly 50% in 1999 to about 27% in 2011, increased school enrollment, substantially decreased infant and child mortality, and improved access to potable water and sanitation through social investment.”
• Venezuela as the pivot for New Internationalism? — an interview with Michael Hudson: By imposing sanctions that prevent Venezuela from gaining access to its U.S. bank deposits and the assets of its state-owned Citco, the United States is making it impossible for Venezuela to pay its foreign debt. This is forcing it into default, which U.S. diplomats hope to use as an excuse to foreclose on Venezuela’s oil resources and seize its foreign assets much as Paul Singer’s hedge fund sought to do with Argentina’s foreign assets. Just as U.S. policy under Kissinger was to make Chile’s “economy scream,” so the U.S. is following the same path against Venezuela. It is using that country as a “demonstration effect” to warn other countries not to act in their self-interest in any way that prevents their economic surplus from being siphoned off by U.S. investors.
• They were... Socialist Invaders from the Future! — Tom the Dancing Bug by Ruben Bolling:
  
• Bernie 2020 Campaign Has Corporate Democrats Running Scared — Norman Solomon: With a launch of the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign on the near horizon, efforts to block his trajectory to the Democratic presidential nomination are intensifying. The lines of attack are already aggressive -- and often contradictory. One media meme says that Bernie has made so much headway in moving the Democratic Party leftward that he’s no longer anything special. We’re supposed to believe that candidates who’ve adjusted their sails to the latest political wind are just as good as the candidate who generated the wind in the first place.
• Bernie’s Likely 2020 Bid Could Transform the Political Landscape — Norman Solomon again, this time in Truthout: We are now at a decisive fork in the road that Justice Louis Brandeis identified long ago: “We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” The two hands with the most wealth concentrated in them now belong to Amazon owner Jeff Bezos. Not coincidentally, his newspaper, The Washington Post, has been among the influential media outlets most antagonistic toward Sanders. In early March 2016, at a pivotal moment during the primary campaign, FAIR analyst Adam Johnson pointed out that The Post “ran 16 negative stories on Bernie Sanders in 16 hours … a window that includes the crucial Democratic debate in Flint, Michigan, and the next morning’s spin.” The day after that onslaught ended, Sanders stunned the elite media by winning the Michigan primary.
• Why the Differences Between Sanders and Warren Matter — Zaid Jilani in Jacobin: Since her departure from the Republican Party, Warren has busied herself promoting a “level playing field” and a fairer system for workers and consumers. Her ideals, while not out of step with those of a mid-century liberal Republican, would represent a marked shift away from the economic status quo if implemented. […] Yet Sanders has always existed outside the traditional party system. He has more in common with non-American socialists like Evo Morales and Jeremy Corbyn than party figures like John Kennedy, to whom Warren has subtly linked herself. He would be the most progressive president the United States has ever seen. The two senators also have distinct theories of change. Sanders has long believed in bottom-up, movement-based politics. Since his days as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, he has tried to energize citizens to take part in government. He generally distrusts elites and decision-making that does not include the public. Warren, on the other hand, generally accepts political reality and works to push elite decision-makers towards her point of view.
• Pro-Israel Lobby Caught on Tape Boasting That Its Money Influences Washington — Ryan Grim in the Intercept: David Ochs, founder of HaLev, which helps send young people to American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual conference, described for the reporter how AIPAC and its donors organize fundraisers outside the official umbrella of the organization, so that the money doesn’t show up on disclosures as coming specifically from AIPAC. He describes one group that organizes fundraisers in both Washington and New York. “This is the biggest ad hoc political group, definitely the wealthiest, in D.C.,” Ochs says, adding that it has no official name, but is clearly tied to AIPAC. “It’s the AIPAC group. It makes a difference; it really, really does. It’s the best bang for your buck, and the networking is phenomenal.” […] Without spending money, Ochs argues, the pro-Israel lobby isn’t able to enact its agenda. “Congressmen and senators don’t do anything unless you pressure them. They kick the can down the road, unless you pressure them, and the only way to do that is with money,” he explains. And, for context:
• There Is a Taboo Against Criticizing AIPAC — and Ilhan Omar Just Destroyed It — Mehdi Hasan: In 2005, Steven Rosen, then a senior official with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, sat down for dinner with journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, then of the New Yorker. “You see this napkin?” Rosen asked Goldberg. “In twenty-four hours, [AIPAC] could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin.” I couldn’t help but be reminded of this anecdote after Rep. Ilhan Omar, of Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, was slammed by Democrats and Republicans alike over her suggestion, in a pair of tweets, that U.S. politicians back the state of Israel because of financial pressure from AIPAC (“It’s all about the Benjamins baby,” she declaimed). Was the flippant way in which she phrased her tweets a problem? Did it offend a significant chunk of liberal U.S. Jewish opinion? Did it perhaps unwittingly play into anti-Semitic tropes about rich Jews controlling the world? Yes, yes, and yes — as she herself has since admitted and “unequivocally” apologized for. But was she wrong to note the power of the pro-Israel lobby, to point a finger at AIPAC, to highlight — in her apology — “the problematic role of lobbyists in our politics, whether it be AIPAC, the NRA or the fossil fuel industry”? No, no, and no.
• Maybe We’ll Invade Another Oil-Rich Politically Dysfunctional Sort of Socialist Country. What Could Go Wrong? — Ted Rall: