The Progressive Wing

Mike Siegel has a new ad:

In #TX10, latest @SiegelForTexas TV ad uses footage of @RepMcCaul on flight with mask off: https://t.co/eFWtQOh46D
— Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) October 19, 2020

I’m asking for your support to replace a “rep” who failed us on every count:
❌ Ignoring doctors & refusing to wear a mask
❌ Forgetting workers & propping up corporate elites
❌ Enabling a president who assaults democracy & common decency
Lets put people first! #TX10
— Mike Siegel (@SiegelForTexas) October 20, 2020

https://www.nbcsandiego.com/videos/nbc-7s-2020-50th-congressional-district-debate-part-1/2425409/

Debate between Ammar Campa-Najjar and Daryl Issa:

Last poll was over a month ago, and it was almost a tie (+1 for Issa).

https://www.kpbs.org/news/2020/oct/11/local-democrats-candidate-campa-najjars-interview/

I don’t think Campa-Najjar Is worth it. He seems to have tacked very right since last election

Ammar Campa-Najjar is the Democratic candidate for the 50th District U.S. House seat. Yet last week, he told the far-right group Defend East County he’s not sure who he’ll support for president, Joe Biden or Donald Trump.
“I don’t care who wins, I will work with whoever,” Campa-Najjar said in the Oct. 7 interview, which was posted on the group’s private Facebook page. “You think I will vote for Biden necessarily, I still want to see how they perform in the debates.”
Campa-Najjar did say he had voted for Biden in the March Primary. The 31-year-old also said in the interview that he would likely support Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court and, if elected, would consider investigating Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
He also reiterated stances he’s previously made in support of Trump’s border wall and against his impeachment.
In an interview with KPBS on Saturday, Campa-Najjar walked back some of the statements he made to Haskins.
Defend East County, or DEC, formed after a racial justice protest on May 30 in downtown La Mesa. The protest had been peaceful during the day, but turned destructive in the evening hours with looters setting fire to cars and buildings and causing millions of dollars in damages to businesses.
Members of the loosely organized group, which has a large following on Facebook, say it exists to protect residents and businesses of East County. But its followers have on the Facebook page espoused right-wing conspiracy theories, made racist statements and called for violence against Black Lives Matter protesters.
In the video, Campa-Najjar and Haskins are sitting shoulder-to-shoulder and not wearing masks. They are smoking cigars and drinking whisky.

Still better him than Issa.

Disagree. They are even in BS.

He’s not. I feel for the voters in that district. What a yahoo!🤬🤬

I think he will not be like Tulsi.

Beth Doglio:

Join me this Wednesday on r/Political_Revolution for an AMA to discuss my plans to bring Progressive politics to Congress! pic.twitter.com/JatUt1pUNH
— Beth Doglio (@BethDoglio) October 19, 2020

Come hangout with & hear from true #climate candidates to support @BethDoglio and @Kunkel4Congress who will actually fight to protect our communities. #vote #justice #ArminArm4Climate #electclimatechamps
Register here: https://t.co/6sGOUjBkNo pic.twitter.com/1i6JEINdka
— Kunkel for Congress (@Kunkel4Congress) October 20, 2020

Julie Oliver:

Like so many Texas families, I defied the odds to get where I am today. And I believe every family deserves the chance to succeed.
Our story, in a new ad on stations all over #TX25 now. pic.twitter.com/sCqcYmwfoW
— Julie Oliver (@JulieOliverTX) October 20, 2020

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=782169542355157

Bernie also did a video for Oliver on FB yesterday:

Whoaaaa that’s a big one. https://t.co/iNEt6a3vNx
— Krystal Ball (@krystalball) October 20, 2020

so Cal Cunningham and Jaime Harrison need to bring it home. Still surprised Bullock is the underdog.

There are several Senate seats that could switch: Maine, Iowa, Alaska, Arizona, So. and No. Carolina, WVA, CO. That could already be happening with these initial heavy turnouts. That will blunt the destructive actions of asshole Beijing Mitch. Unfortunately, he will be re-elected.🤮🤮🤮🤮

I’ll say it again: McTurtle would be losing if Charles Booker had been the Dem nominee. Booker would be all over him about the stimulus.

Marquita and Paula Jean are longshots but worth supporting

Thank you, @DemSocialists!
Working people deserve a working-class champion. It’s time to put people over profit and create healthy and safe communities for ALL. ✊🏾
Join #TeamBradshaw: https://t.co/2PtHDLnzvU pic.twitter.com/00hzCoEIeJ
— Marquita Bradshaw (@BradshawforTN) October 19, 2020

It’s better to run someone, than no one at all. Paula Jean would have been better served to run for a district rather than senate. But I admire Paula Jean for keeping the fight going.

Paula Jean already has name recognition in her earlier quest against Manchin. She has a very good chance against Caputo.

Folks across the country realize what we've known in #MI06 for a long time – we can win.
This won't be easy. Upton's been in office for 34 years & polling shows this race is neck and neck with just 2 weeks to go.
Chip in what you can to help us win: https://t.co/SRgQZH8MYt pic.twitter.com/kzlF6ayVS2
— Jon Hoadley (@JonHoadley) October 19, 2020

Our campaign has always taken the virus seriously. We have passed up in-person events held inside, stopped door-to-door canvassing and worn and distributed masks in #ne02.
👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻 has happened because of the failed leadership of Donald J Bacon and Donald J Trump. https://t.co/gIW75Lq6hV
— Kara Eastman (@_karaeastman) October 20, 2020

and just think, if TOP had not ruined a centrist’s chances at mayor in Omaha, we might be seeing a different scenario.

Obviously, in NY, Biden support is a plus. This is a Syracuse area district currently held by Republican Katko. Balter has not come out for M4A but emphasizes how Medicare is a great system and all who want it should be able to get it (public option). Obviously, a big upgrade over the Republican.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/20/early-voting-more-than-34-million-americans-have-cast-ballots.html

With two weeks until Election Day, more than 34 million Americans have already voted in the 2020 presidential election, according to data updated Tuesday morning by the U.S. Elections Project.
Votes cast by mail and in person this election cycle have now reached 24.5% of the more than 136 million total ballots cast in the 2016 presidential election. By Oct. 23 four years ago, only 5.9 million Americans had voted early.
While Democrats have dominated vote-by-mail, Republicans are starting to make up ground with in-person early voting.
Out of about 13.7 million mail ballots tracked by the U.S. Elections Project, registered Democrats have returned 54.4%, compared to 23.6% by Republicans and 21.5% by voters with no party affiliation.
When it comes to in-person voting, the margin is narrower. Registered Democrats have cast 43.3% of in-person ballots, with Republicans closely trailing at 35.4% and unaffiliated voters at 20.8%, according to the project.
“If I were running a campaign, I’d much prefer to be the one where I’ve already banked millions of votes more than my opponent,” Michael McDonald, director of the U.S. Elections Project and political science professor at the University of Florida, wrote on the project’s website Sunday.
High early voting turnout allows Democratic organizers to cross off names on their targeting lists and focus resources on turning out less likely voters closer to Election Day, McDonald said. Democratic challenger Joe Biden’s campaign is not resting on its laurels.

Look at the high number of Indies. Not good news for the fascists and their fruitcake religious allies.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/521868-gop-pollster-luntz-blasts-trump-campaign-as-worst-hes-ever-seen

🤣🤣🤣

Prominent Republican pollster Frank Luntz blasted President Trump and his campaign on Tuesday for focusing on Hunter Biden in the stretch run to Election Day, calling Trump’s campaign the worst he’s ever seen and saying the president’s advisers should be “brought up on charges of political malpractice.”
Speaking at a briefing for the British strategic advising company Global Counsel, Luntz said Trump’s advisers have “their heads up their asses” if they think Hunter Biden will be a winning issue for them.
“I’ve never seen a campaign more mis-calibrated than the Trump campaign. Frankly, his staff ought to be brought up on charges of political malpractice,” Luntz said.
“It is the worst campaign I’ve ever seen and I’ve been watching them since 1980. They’re on the wrong issues. They’re on the wrong message. They’ve got their heads up their assess…Your damn job is to get your candidate to talk about things that are relevant to the people you need to reach. And if you can’t do your damn job then get out.”

I would not be surprised if Luntz has contributed money to Lincoln Project, but in stealth.

I know most in most Democratic Party circles (ie TOP and a few other places) despise Luntz, but he really does know about messaging. I’ve seen some YT’s of presentations to city mayors/managers, and often, he focuses on what’s coming up in the next 3-5 years. He’s well aware that the young voters are more progressive than most, and people have to reach out to them. Trump is not doing that. Neither is Biden, but Biden will learn the hard way if he loses.

Frank Luntz can take his phony shit and shove it. He’s no more changed his stripes than Karl Rove.

Luntz isn’t quite Karl Rove these days.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/20/progressives-who-support-biden-now-must-be-ready-push-him-later/?utm_source=reddit.com

But not every Democrat seems intent on pursuing a bolder agenda. Moderate Democratic senators have said that the filibuster helps them grab more federal funding. Their progressive counterparts must continue to push their colleagues to look at the big picture: Working families don’t just need federal funds; they also need legislation that ensures affordable housing, public works programs and accessible health care.
And then there’s the White House, which will hopefully be occupied by President Joe Biden. His coalition will determine what he achieves. So far, Biden has distanced himself from the progressive wing of the party and allied himself with moderates. But if he’s elected, it will be with the help of progressives. Those who once supported Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have raised and spent millions for Biden’s campaign. The Biden-Sanders joint task forces put forth progressive policies on health care, climate change and the economy. Progressive groups have provided an aggressive ad campaign, a nationwide network of activists and a new approach to rural organizing to help move working-class voters beyond Trumpist resentments.
The progressives who support Biden now must prepare to push him later. On Friday, a group of progressive organizations and individuals called on Biden not to appoint chief executives and corporate lobbyists to his administration. As Robert L. Borosage wrote in the Nation, if Biden wins next month, “progressives will not give him a pass but will seek to drive bold reforms from the get-go” — ensuring that Biden forms and consults an inclusive coalition as he advances his agenda.
For an example of how to do this, Democrats can look to New York’s Working Families Party. The WFP has spent 22 years forming such a coalition, organizing progressive organizations and replacing moderate Democrats in Albany with WFP-endorsed lawmakers. In 2018, its activism paid off: The New York legislature had enough progressive members to pass long-overdue bills on issues ranging from climate change to voting rights. The WFP’s effective progressivism has refocused the legislature’s work squarely on populism.
At the same time, the WFP’s progressive push has challenged Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s tight grip on New York politics — a challenge the centrist governor has not taken kindly to. This year, Cuomo (D) retaliated by more than tripling the vote threshold that the WFP must cross to maintain its legal status — to more than 160,000 votes, based on this year’s turnout estimates. Now, even though the party is backing the likely-to-win Biden/Harris ticket, it could be removed from the state ballot.
But let’s assume that the WFP gets the 160,000-odd votes needed. Let’s assume the gavel remains in Pelosi’s hands and McConnell is sent packing. Let’s assume the White House is occupied by a qualified leader.
Just because we’ve won doesn’t mean the work of progressives is done.
On the contrary — it is just beginning. Looking past the election, the WFP’s recent People’s Charter provides guidance for policymaking moving forward — a “roadmap out of our current state of crisis, and to an America that works for the many, not the privileged and powerful few.” It suggests universal health care, a tax increase on corporations and job creation through public works programs. Whether these policies will be enacted will depend on the actions of Democrats at every level of government.
The chaos of recent years — from the pandemic to inequities, structural racism to climate change — demands a paradigm shift. In 2020 and beyond, that will determine the future of the Democratic Party and the nation. It’s time to think ahead.

Atlas is undermining preventive measures. He dismisses masks and social distancing as meaningless. Two days ago, he publicly rejected the idea that "masks work." He says all restrictions on activity should be lifted except for the highest-risk groups. /2 https://t.co/LDWSvzQ6ta pic.twitter.com/Ba4DDrwXww
— Will Saletan (@saletan) October 19, 2020

Only about 10% of Americans have been infected. To attain herd immunity, we would need to reach 60% or 70% infection. That means the strategy being promoted by Atlas, and increasingly adopted by Trump, entails "hundreds of thousands of excess deaths." /4 https://t.co/LDWSvzQ6ta pic.twitter.com/4ClTbfCmm9
— Will Saletan (@saletan) October 19, 2020

Bismarck, North Dakota is down to only **1** ICU bed in the entire city, and just a handful in the entire state because of #COVID19. ND’s coronavirus epidemic is among the worst in the nation and th entire world. https://t.co/jR9mnltXsn
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) October 20, 2020

They had health professionals from WI on Rachel Maddow’s show last night. They said they feel left behind in this new wave of COVID.

wi63

Not surprised about that, Every time Evers tries to do something Vos and Fitzgerald run to the WSSC, from a legislative standpoint those two have done jack shit on the virus other than get Evers over ruled. Now a bunch of R idiots claim to have enough signatures to recall Evers. Were right behind Orl’s state in the asinine batshit crazy dept..

One doctor said some college kids were in the hospital, days after visiting Grandma in a nursing home. He said he wishes he could visit his mom, who is afflicted with it but she’s in another town, and the workload is too heavy at present.

Whose fault is that? These red idiot states have plenty of access to competent CV info. They choose to ignore it. Example: Sturgis Biker Rally. Talk about a major CV disease event!

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/20/health/us-coronavirus-tuesday/index.html

Daily coronavirus case numbers in the US are at levels not seen since the summer, and more than a dozen states set record highs for Covid-19 hospitalizations in the past week — yet more evidence, experts say, of a difficult fall and winter ahead.
The country’s seven-day average of new daily cases was above 58,300 as of Monday — a level not seen since the first week of August, and climbing closer to the summer’s peak of 67,200 on July 22.
Average daily cases have soared 70% since September 12, when the country was at a two-month low of about 34,300.
As cold weather is likely to drive more gatherings indoors, the case level appears too high to avoid dangerous levels of infections and hospitalizations in the coming weeks, experts have said.
“(With) the fact that we’re only going to see more transmission occur with indoor air, people inside, this is going to be a rough fall,” Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told CNN on Tuesday.
Case rates and hospitalizations are rising especially in the Midwest, Great Plains and parts of the West.
Fourteen states reported their peak Covid-19 hospitalizations in the last week: Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Montana, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin, according to the Covid Tracking Project.
close dialog
The virus’s prevalence is bad enough that the director for the National Institutes for Health says his family won’t gather for Thanksgiving this year.
“It is just not safe to take that kind of chance with people coming from different parts of the country of uncertain status,” Dr. Francis Collins told National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” on Tuesday. “The problem with this disease is it is so easy for people to be infected and not know it, and then spread it to the ones next to them without realizing it.”
“All of this, I’m afraid, happens because we have not succeeded in this country in introducing really effective public health measures,” Collins said.
“Simple things that we all could be doing: Wear your mask, keep that six foot distance, and don’t congregate indoors, whatever you do, and wash your hands. And yet people are tired of it and yet the virus is not tired of us,” Collins said.
The country has now topped 220,000 Covid-19 deaths, a number some experts worry may also begin to climb faster.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/20/us/kansas-nursing-home-coronavirus-deaths-trnd/index.html

Ten people living at a Kansas nursing home have died after an outbreak of Covid-19 infected every resident, according to a news release Monday from the Norton County Health Department.
All 62 residents at the privately owned Andbe Home in Norton have tested positive for the virus, the release states.
“Steps are being taken to prevent any further outbreak including quarantining residents in their rooms and not allowing outside visitors into the facility,” the release says, adding that relatives of all residents have been notified.
Some staff members have also tested positive, and the rest are being tested, the release states.

1.5 Million New Yorkers Can’t Afford Food. Pantries Are Their Lifeline.

City Harvest, one of the largest emergency food distributors in New York, recorded nearly 12 million visits to the pantries in its network from March through August — about three million more than in the same period last year.

LieparDestin

Wealth⬆️during pandemic:
⬆️$90.1 billion: Jeff Bezos
⬆️$68.2 billion: Elon Musk
⬆️$46.5 billion: Mark Zuckerberg
⬆️$42.7 billion: Dan Gilbert
⬆️$29.7 billion: MacKenzie Scott
⬆️$22.3 billion: Steve Ballmer
⬆️$21.3 billion: Larry Ellison
⬆️$20.0 billion: Bill Gates
How'd you do?
— Warren Gunnels (@GunnelsWarren) October 20, 2020

LieparDestin

China now has 878 billionaires. Alibaba founder Jack Ma remains the richest, after his wealth surged 45% to $58.8 billion. https://t.co/3iAtgFu52a
— Rappler (@rapplerdotcom) October 20, 2020

Screw him.

wi63

I’m quite a few digits off 🙂

99% of us are many digits off. It doesn’t have to be that way. How many helicopters and yachts do people need anyway?

wi63

Exactly a total waste of natural resources that are finite in nature