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Back at cha LD-JD

Indigenous and Progressive Activists and Lawmakers Plan Rally at DNC to Push Biden in Greener Direction

In a show of progressive power and solidarity that organizers hope will make President-elect Joe Biden take notice—and take action—a coalition of frontline Indigenous activists, union organizers, climate campaigners, and progressive lawmakers including members of the expanded Squad will hold a rally Thursday at Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Scheduled speakers for the event include Ta’Sina Smith of the Cheyenne River Grassroots Collective, as well as U.S. Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and Representative-elect Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.). All of the lawmakers are staunch supporters of the Green New Deal.
Keya Chatterjee of U.S. Climate Action Network, John Henry Williams of the Sunrise Movement, Margaret Kwateng of Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, and Jess Morales Rocketto of Care In Action are also set to address the socially-distanced rally.
A broad range of progressive organizations including Black Lives Matter Philadelphia, Center for Justice and Accountability, Climate Justice Alliance, Greenpeace, Indigenous Enironmental Network, Indivisible, Pueblo Action Alliance, and the Working Families Party plan to participate in the event.
Indigenous Environmental Network said in a statement that the event is a “bold action to address the interconnected crises of the [Covid-19] pandemic and the economic and climate threats facing our communities.”
“This includes a corporate-free Cabinet and administration staffed with personnel committed to addressing the climate threat, as well as following through on promises made during the campaign,” the organizers said.
“[This] rally is a culmination of intensive and sustained organizing by labor, racial justice, environmental, Indigenous, and other groups to address racial injustice, the climate crisis, and economic justice in this moment of overlapping crises,” they added.

T and R, LD!! 🙂 Always good for us enviro wrinkles to see Greenpeace represented.

Who’s in Charge of the Democratic Party?

Who is in charge of the Democratic Party? In particular, who is in charge of its strategy and spending? That’s actually a surprisingly difficult question to answer—and it shouldn’t be, at a time when the party and the country face critical challenges that will affect millions of lives for years to come. The next six weeks will see significant turnover in the staffing and leadership of the biggest organizations in the Democratic ecosystem, but many of those decisions will be made in metaphorical smoke-filled rooms, shielded from the kinds of transparency and accountability that are hallmarks of effective and successful organizations.
What is commonly called “the Democratic Party” is actually a constellation of six entities that, collectively, spent more than $1.3 billion in the 2020 election cycle.
Even in the most public process—as with the Democratic National Committee, where bylaws clearly explain the process for electing a chair—it remains unclear how to even put one’s name in the hat to be considered for the top job. Despite raising and spending hundreds of millions of dollars from Democratic donors, the super PACs—House Majority PAC, Senate Majority PAC, and Priorities USA—operate with the least level of accountability, frequently making leadership changes without posting positions, searching for talent, articulating the key responsibilities of the position, or even revealing who is in fact doing the hiring.
With respect to the campaign arms of the Senate and House Democrats, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), there is some measure of clarity regarding who becomes the chair of each entity. The Democratic senators select their leader, currently Chuck Schumer, and that leader typically picks the chair of the DSCC. On the House side, the members directly vote for the chair of the DCCC (before 2018, the leader of the House Dems choose the committee chair).
While those lines of authority are clear, what happens next is not. The incoming chairs choose an executive director, who then hires the rest of the staff, who in turn run the day-to-day operations.
Over the past decade, dating back to my work in 2008 helping to create a Diversity Talent Bank of 5,000 diverse candidates interested in working in the Obama-Biden administration, I have rarely, if ever, seen a job description circulated for the top staff position of these entities. At best, these poor practices undermine their ability to function at optimal levels. At worst, they result in the kind of diversity debacle that occurred last year, when Congressional Black Caucus and Hispanic Caucus members loudly complained about the overwhelmingly monochromatic composition of the DCCC staff assembled by then–executive director Allison Jaslow.
Absent clear criteria for what the job entails and with no process in place for a healthy range of promising contenders to offer their expertise, the pool of potential people to fill those positions is, almost by definition, limited to the friends and family of a small circle of insiders.

‘Incredibly Important Step’ Toward Restorative Justice as Tribes, Dem Governors, and Klamath Dam Owner Announce Salmon Restoration Plan

After years of tireless organizing and negotiations, local tribal leaders in the Klamath Basin, the Democratic governors of California and Oregon, and relevant corporate partners on Tuesday announced an agreement that sets the stage for the largest dam demolition project—and most ambitious salmon restoration effort—in U.S. history.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown joined leaders of the Yurok and Karuk Tribes and Berkshire Hathaway-owned PacifiCorp in announcing the Memorandum of Agreement signed by the states, tribes, company, and the Klamath River Renewal Corporation (KRRC), which will carry out the removal process.
“We deeply appreciate the efforts of Govs. Newsom and Brown, the Yurok Tribe, and the leadership of Berkshire Hathaway to forge a path forward on dam removal,” Karuk Tribe chair Russell “Buster” Attebery said in a statement. “We are more confident than ever that future generations of Karuk will enjoy the benefits of a healthy Klamath River just as their ancestors did dating back to the beginning of time.”
“Most importantly,” Attebery added, “this moment is a testament to years of devotion and hard work by the community of activists representing all tribes on the river who have never tired of demanding justice for their communities.”
Yurok Tribe chair Joseph James similarly celebrated the deal and thanked everyone involved, while also vowing that his people “will never rest until the dams are out and the river is healed.”
“As Yurok tribal people, it is our sacred duty to bring balance to the Klamath River,” James explained. “At its heart, dam removal is about healing and restoration for the river, for the salmon, and for our people. We have never wavered from this obligation and we are pleased to see dam removal come closer to reality through this agreement. Reaching this important milestone would not be possible without the many tribal people who have dedicated their lives to restoring the river.”

from the article. love the photo.

Op-Ed: A victory for salmon, two tribes and the Klamath River https://t.co/mu1BlOEOew
— Corporate Socialist Raking It In (@genofthesea) November 19, 2020

side note. i’ve backpacked to a tributary almost at the river (and a hella hike up into rocky basins). gorgeous country.

The Last Thing the Economy Needs Is Joe Biden’s Austerity

Millions of Americans who object to the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic have spent the last two weeks celebrating his defeat. Amid the revelry, more news hit: first Pfizer and now Moderna have developed vaccines that they report are over 90 percent effective in protecting against the virus. To many, it appears there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.
If we can stop the spread of the virus, that will be a triumph in itself — the sooner we can distribute a vaccine, the more lives will be saved. But recent economic figures complicate a rosy picture of the future. The incoming presidential administration will inherit a ravaged job market: the nation is down ten million jobs from the beginning of the pandemic, more than eleven million if you factor in the predicted job growth that was thwarted by the crisis. The coronavirus pandemic has inflicted deep wounds in the US economy, wounds that will leave lasting scars unless the Biden administration makes an unlikely break with Biden’s own tradition of austerity.
The millions of lost jobs will not be automatically restored when all lockdowns end and all businesses reopen, as many already have. Something like that might have happened if the United States had opted to follow in the footsteps of many European countries and “deep freeze” the economy with social spending to replenish income and preserve jobs, allowing it to safely “thaw out” at the end of the health crisis. But the tightfisted — well, tightfisted unless you’re a massive corporation or wealthy individual — US government did not take that route. The consequence of that decision is that pandemic-induced job losses will likely take a long time to recover from.
The eleven million figure undersells the extent of the damage, too. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that twenty-five million workers have taken a big hit over the course of the pandemic, a number that includes seven million who’ve experienced cuts in pay and hours, three million who are unemployed but misclassified, and four and a half million who’ve dropped out of the labor force.
The hardship is not theirs alone, either — behind every number is a family suffering from lost income, businesses suffering from lost revenue, local governments suffering from lost tax revenue. Plus, a slack labor market puts all workers at a disadvantage, as a vast reserve army of people willing to take their place for less weakens their leverage to negotiate wages and working conditions. All told, this is not an economic divot, it’s an economic crater that will take a large-scale government mobilization to fill in.
Biden will not engage in Trump’s brand of alarming medical denialism, and for this we can be grateful. Unfortunately for the American working class, however, Biden is a longtime proponent of weathering crises with austerity rather than social spending, the same mentality that led us to this impasse.

Benny

Taxpayers are subsidizing some of the wealthiest families and most profitable corporations in America. That is morally obscene and it's going to change. Workers need to earn a living wage. https://t.co/od4rG6nbV0
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) November 19, 2020

‘No Vaccine for Climate Change’: Coronavirus Has Been Disastrous, Says Red Cross, But Global Warming Poses Greater Threat

“The Covid-19 pandemic has shown how vulnerable the world is to a truly global catastrophe. But another, bigger, catastrophe has been building for many decades, and humanity is still lagging far behind in efforts to address it.”
So begins Come Heat or High Water, the 2020 World Disasters Report (pdf) published Tuesday by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
While “Covid-19 has demonstrated that humanity has the capacity to recognize and respond to a global crisis,” the authors wrote, “climate change is an even more significant challenge to humanity… one which literally threatens our long-term survival.”
Indeed, “the impacts of global warming are already killing people and devastating lives and livelihoods every year,” including in 2020, the report noted. “Climate change is not waiting for Covid-19 to be brought under control.”
The analysis showed that more than 100 climate change-related disasters occurred in just the first six months of the pandemic, affecting over 50 million people.
“Many people are being directly affected by the pandemic and climate-driven disasters all at once,” the report said, drawing attention to what researchers called “compounding shocks.”
“And the world’s poorest and most at-risk people are being hit first and hardest,” which is consistent with “trends in vulnerability and exposure” that have led scholars to describe climate as a “risk multiplier.”
While there is hope that one or more vaccines will soon provide protection against the coronavirus, IFRC Secretary-General Jagan Chapagain told reporters that “unfortunately, there is no vaccine for climate change.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/11/19/us-emissions-climate-bloombergnef/?utm_source=reddit.com

The pandemic actually had a positive effect here, but the forest fires cut into the drop.

Greenhouse gases generated by the U.S. economy will slide 9.2 percent this year, tumbling to the lowest level in at least three decades, a new BloombergNEF study says.
Battered by the coronavirus pandemic, the stalled economy is projected to have generated 5.9 billion metric tons of emissions, about the same level as 1983, according to the private research organization.
As a result, the United States has been inadvertently pushed back on track to meet the commitments the Obama administration made at the Paris climate agreement in December 2015, despite the fact the Trump administration pulled the country out of the pact. Before 2020, the United States had fallen badly behind its targets under the accord.
Still, net emissions are expected to be 6.4 percent lower after taking into account the unusually extreme forest fires that swept the West Coast and Rocky Mountains earlier this year, pumping carbon dioxide and other pollution into the air and offsetting much of the drop in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

you’re on fire today!

Indigenous Democrats Helped Flip Arizona, No Thanks to Party Leaders

In early March, Jaynie Parrish was living in Washington, DC, managing social media for Emily’s List, a pro-choice political action committee, when she learned that COVID-19 was tearing through her homeland, the Navajo Nation. She “freaked out” hearing that the virus had already killed ten people there; in less than three months, hundreds more would die as the reservation’s case rate surpassed that of any US state. Parrish felt she needed to do something. So when a Navajo leader invited her to spearhead an Indigenous voting project, she quit her job and moved home to Arizona.
As campaign director for the Northeast Arizona Native Democrats, a coalition of Democratic groups from heavily Native counties, Parrish led a grassroots team in running a ground game like none their region had seen. Their goal was to unite Navajo, Apache, Hopi, and other Indigenous voters into a bloc that could help turn the state blue for the first time in 24 years. Native leaders have long argued that Democratic campaigns fail to treat their communities as a group with the voting power to tip the scales in state and national elections. This year, the devastation the pandemic has brought to Arizona’s Native communities, thanks largely to the president’s negligence, was yet another reason to believe reservation voters might not choose Trump. COVID-19 “was in our face day-to-day,” says Parrish, recalling one teammate showing up to canvass three days after losing a relative to the virus.
Their efforts paid off: Navajo precincts went 60 to 90 percent for president-elect Joe Biden, and neighboring tribes voted similarly. Six percent of Arizonans are Indigenous, and the Navajo alone comprise about 67,000 registered voters—six times the number of votes by which Biden won the state. Yet these results were no thanks to the Biden campaign; like the Latinx organizers that pounded the pavement to register and mobilize their own communities, the Navajo and other tribes helped flip Arizona for a party that’s largely taken them for granted.
“It was a constant pull, with us saying, ‘you need to do this.’ They didn’t always listen,” says Parrish of her group’s efforts to get national campaigns involved. The Native coalition would’ve loved to have “Biden money,” or funds from Democratic Senate candidate Mark Kelly (who also won his race thanks in part to Native voters). But for most of the race, neither campaign chipped in, says Parrish. “Everything was on our own. No one else was going to do it.”
They ended up winning financial support from liberal groups in other states. Parrish and Eric Kramer, a non-Native ally who chairs the Navajo County Democrats, wrote articles for the Daily Kos about how Indigenous voters could flip Arizona; that online community raised $300,000, while supporters of Crooked Media and Swing Left San Francisco helped bring the grand total to $450,000—most of it raised without Democratic establishment support.
The coalition was thus able to hire an army of local Indigenous organizers, many of whom had coordinated mutual aid on reservations in the pandemic’s early days, to reach the Navajo, Hopi, White Mountain Apache, San Carlos Apache, and others. As these reservations lifted lockdown orders, organizers and volunteers went door-to-door registering voters at a distance.

Aint Supposed to Die A Natural Death

Yesterday Democracy Now did an interview with a young activist native woman who organized to bring out the vote for Biden. Her interview starts about 5.09 but the entire 15 minute video is informative.

:heart:

I really think if Trumpcorp wasnt such a piss poor president a lot of people would have sat out

the pied piper theory finally worked.

Our daily update is published. States reported 1.5M tests, 164k cases, and 1,869 deaths. A record 79k people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in the US. Today's death count is the highest since May 7. pic.twitter.com/8ps5itYiWr
— The COVID Tracking Project (@COVID19Tracking) November 19, 2020

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/526594-minnesota-to-close-bars-restaurants-gyms-for-four-weeks-report

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) is expected to announce Wednesday that he will close bars, restaurants and gyms for four weeks in a bid to slow the steep rise in coronavirus cases, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
The state has seen a marked increase in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, and without significant actions, the outbreak shows no sign of slowing down as winter arrives.
Minnesota has one of the highest per capita rates of the coronavirus in the country, according to COVID Exit Strategy, though the neighboring Dakotas are experiencing even more severe outbreaks.
Minnesota follows Michigan, where Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) also closed bars and restaurants earlier this week.
Many states, though, particularly those run by Republican governors who say they do not want to close businesses, have not taken such steps. Other states have imposed earlier closing times on bars and restaurants without closing them completely.

It will be a cold day in h3ll before that’s done in this dump. 💩🤬

Same here in Wi, every time Evers tries to do something the R’s run to the WSSC and get their way. deaths are considered ok as long as profits reign supreme

Torabs

Hope Evers is pounding the bully pulpit and looking for ways to fight back. Republicans cannot be the only ones getting creative with Executive power.

He is from a standpoint of simply asking for people to wear a mask and stay away from large groups, Every time he does an XO the Tavern league for example files suit and the R’s send it to the WSSC which basically does what Vos and Fitzgerald want and over turns the XO. Those 2 clowns passed legislation just after Walker lost to take away a lot of his XO abilities in certain areas as well. Other than a Gov election and a couple other offices that cant be controlled by the R gerrymander we pretty much under a fascist controlled R govt, Voting D doesnt mean much as those voters are hemmed in to tight areas. The R’s almost got enough districts to override and Evers veto on bills

Torabs

Sad to hear minority rule is so entrenched there. Sounds like a place I would hate to see my neighbors.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/19/kristi-noem-trump-strategy-denial-covid-ravages-south-dakota

Unfortunately, Republican voters don’t seem to care.

But since Trump’s defeat, Noem has still clung to the president and to his policies as though her political life depends on it.
The actual lives of many South Dakotans could depend, in turn, upon that decision given the terrifying surge of Covid-19 cases that is battering the state under Noem’s contentious leadership. South Dakota has been listed by Forbes as one of the 10 most dangerous states in the Union, all of them in the Midwest.
Coronavirus in South Dakota is running at an intensity only surpassed in the US by its neighbor North Dakota. The state has an alarming positivity rate of almost 60% – nearly six out of 10 people who take a Covid test are infected – second only to another neighbor, Wyoming.
Viewed through the lens of cases and deaths, South Dakota is also at the top of the league table. More than 66,000 South Dakotans have contracted the disease and at least 644 have died, a number likely to rise as hospitals reach breaking point.
Amid this devastating contagion, Noem is rigidly sticking to the strategy she has adopted since the pandemic began. It consists of a refusal to accept mask mandates and repeated denial of the science around the efficacy of wearing masks; resistance to imposing any restrictions on bars and restaurants; no limits on gatherings in churches or other places of worship; and no orders to stay at home.
While the statistics are clear – the virus is running wild in South Dakota – Noem has turned a public health emergency into an issue of “freedom” and “liberty”, consistently lying about the trajectory of the disease under her watch. “We’re doing really good in South Dakota. We’re managing Covid-19,” she has said.
She has also embraced the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid, even after it was proven to be ineffective and potentially dangerous.
If all of this sounds familiar, that’s because it is. Since the start of the pandemic, Noem has consciously adopted the posture of a mini-Trump, following the president’s every move in the handling of the health crisis.

Gawd, is she stupid! Biker hubster has been raising holy havoc about this state cos of Gov. Yahoo allowing Sturgis to go down last August with NO restrictions.

Nope R’s dont care, not one damn bit, their in total borg drone mode and follow Trumpcorp with out question. Its really sad to see so many people in a cult mode

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/giroir-absolutely-dangerous-situation-covid-19

When even Trump appointees warn about an “absolutely dangerous situation”

Adm. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary of health who leads the government’s COVID testing efforts, sounded the alarm on Wednesday that the country is in an “absolutely dangerous situation” as COVID-19 cases continue surging ahead of the holiday season.
During an interview on MSNBC on Wednesday, Giroir said that both COVID-19 hospitalizations and fatalities being up by 25% week over week means that the country is “not going in the right direction.”
Giroir stressed that the country is at an “absolutely critical, dangerous point” as he urged the public to wear a mask to reduce the spread of COVID-19 because it’s “the only way we get out of this” until there’s a vaccine for the pandemic that has killed more than 249,000 Americans thus far.
“Right now, we are in an absolutely dangerous situation that we have to take with the utmost seriousness,” Giroir said. “This is not crying wolf. This is the worst rate of rise in cases that we’ve seen in the pandemic in the United States and right now there’s no sign of flattening.”

Well, no sh1t, sherlock!! Come on down to FL, one of the biggest disease pits in the country!💩💩💩💩💩💩🤬

Wi is in the top 5 and set another record yesterday

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/18/us/covid-state-restrictions.html

Coronavirus cases are rising in almost every U.S. state. But the surge is worst now in places where leaders neglected to keep up forceful virus containment efforts or failed to implement basic measures like mask mandates in the first place, according to a New York Times analysis of data from the University of Oxford.
Using an index that tracks policy responses to the pandemic, these charts show the number of new virus cases and hospitalizations in each state relative to the state’s recent containment measures.
Outbreaks are comparatively smaller in states where efforts to contain the virus were stronger over the summer and fall — potential good news for leaders taking action now. States and cities are reinstating restrictions and implementing new ones: In recent days, the governors of Iowa, North Dakota and Utah imposed mask mandates for the first time since the outbreak began.

NYCVG

deleted—-sorry

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/11/19/1996831/-Tyson-s-lawsuit-exposes-why-we-cant-have-another-Covid19-relief-bill

The Iowa Capitol Dispatch has been covering a wrongful death lawsuit against an Iowa pork processing plant related to Covid-19. Picked up in today’s HuffPost, the suit details how 5 workers in a pork plant were exposed to Covid due to inadequate worker protections leading to their deaths by the virus. Over a 1000 workers at this plant eventually caught the virus. The articles detail how plant managers insisted symptomatic employess come to work. In a perfect encapsulation of modern late stage Capitolism, supervisors were betting on how many employees would get sick.
During the arc of this case, Mitch McConnell has been refusing to take up any proposal for addition Covid19 relief. He has held up what I’m sure he knows is must pass legislation, the perfect lever for an unpopular addition to a bill. Mr. McConnell’s must have concession? Liability protections for employers whose employess get sick at or because of work.
People are loosing their jobs, small businesses are closing apace, the nation needs a stimulus bill, but Mr. McConnell has an infinite capacity for other peoples suffereing. He can wait, it seems forever, knowing that the empathy of his opponents will eventally cause them to fold. His political power base is to attend to the needs of the cheaters and the killers who believe with all their hearts that any law that prevents them from getting rich is an abomination.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tyson-foods-iowa-wrongful-death-lawsuit-betting-accusation-coronavirus_n_5fb5f1f7c5b664958c7d9414

https://www.newsweek.com/people-need-help-aoc-slams-trumps-economic-adviser-saying-stimulus-not-needed-economys-doing-1548589

In a Wednesday evening tweet, Democratic New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized President Donald Trump’s economic adviser Stephen Moore for calling a stimulus package to aid Americans during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic unnecessary because “the economy is doing fine.”
“I don’t see Republicans budging on the blue state bailout,” Moore said, according to Jeff Stein, White House economics reporter for The Washington Post. “The economy is doing fine—much better than anyone expected.”
Responding to Moore’s comment, Ocasio-Cortez posted a tweet which read, “30 million people in this country are at risk of eviction. Millions of people are unemployed or underemployed from cut-back hours. The economy is not the stock market. We are NOT doing fine. People need help in red states and blue, & our job is to help everyone. This is basic.”

Torabs

So when do we shut this entire thing down, again?

The betting part was the really disgusting part, the lack of concern for employees an proper PPE was bad enough..

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/19/opinion/trump-supporters.html

73 million Americans voted for Donald Trump. He doubled down on all his worst vices, and he was rewarded for it with 10 million more votes than he received in 2016.
The majority of people of color rejected his cruelty and vulgarity. But along with others who voted for Joe Biden, we are now being lectured by a chorus of voices including Pete Buttigieg and Ian Bremmer, to “reach out” to Trump voters and “empathize” with their pain.
This is the same advice that was given after Trump’s 2016 victory, and for nearly four years, I attempted to take it. Believe me, it’s not worth it.
The Quran asks Muslims to respond to disagreements and arguments “in a better way” and to “repel evil with good.” I tried. “You might not like me, and I might not like you, but we share the same real estate. So, here’s me reaching out across the aisle. American to American,” I said in a video message to Trump supporters published the day after the election.
I really thought it might work. Growing up, I often talked about my Islamic faith with my non-Muslim friends, and I like to think that might have helped to inoculate them from the Islamophobic propaganda and conspiracy theories that later become popular. So I assumed I could win over some Trump supporters whose frustrations and grievances had been manipulated by those intent on seeing people like me as invaders intent on replacing them.
So in late 2016, I told my speaking agency to book me for events in the states where Trump won. I wanted to talk to the people the media calls “real Americans” from the “heartland,” — which is of course America’s synonym for white people, Trump’s most fervent base. Over the next four years I gave more than a dozen talks to universities, companies and a variety of faith-based communities.
My standard speech was about how to “build a multicultural coalition of the willing.” My message was that diverse communities, including white Trump supporters, could work together to create a future where all of our children would have an equal shot at the American dream. I assured the audiences that I was not their enemy.

I did my part. What was my reward? Listening to Trump’s base chant, “Send her back!” in reference to Representative Ilhan Omar, a black Muslim woman, who came to America as a refugee. I saw the Republican Party transform the McCloskeys into victims, even though the wealthy St. Louis couple illegally brandished firearms against peaceful BLM protesters. Their bellicosity was rewarded with a prime time slot at the Republican National Convention where they warned about “chaos” in the suburbs being invaded by people of color. Their speech would have fit well in ”The Birth of a Nation.”
We cannot help people who refuse to help themselves. Trump is an extension of their id, their culture, their values, their greed. He is their defender and savior. He is their blunt instrument. He is their destructive drug of choice.
Don’t waste your time reaching out to Trump voters like I did. Instead, invest your time organizing your community, registering new voters and supporting candidates who reflect progressive values that uplift everyone, not just those who wear MAGA hats, in local and state elections. Work also to protect Americans against lies and conspiracy theories churned out by the right wing media and political ecosystem. One step would be to continue pressuring social media giants like Twitter and Facebook to deplatform hatemongers, such as Steve Bannon, and censor disinformation. It’s not enough, but it’s a start.
Just as in 2016, I don’t need Trump supporters to be humiliated to feel great again. I want them to have health insurance, decent paying jobs and security for their family. I do not want them to suffer, but I also refuse to spend any more time trying to understand and help the architects of my oppression.
I will move forward along with the majority who want progress, equality and justice for all Americans. If Trump supporters decide they want the same, they can always reach out to me. They know where to find me. Ahead of them.

i agree, it’s just that i have seen this growing with help from both parties. we’ve all been played into a dangerous situation. they’ve wanted us at each others’ throats and now they’ve got it. and yes, a certain segment of people desperately need mental health care. including the wealthier, more politically connected on both sides.

how sane is it to fracking let people die bc you love corporations? when people know they have been left to fend for themselves, they latch onto saviors, no matter how flawed.

saving more of my anger to for the big boys and girls laughing on their way to their limos.

I agree as well, I have a couple of relatives that are full trumpcorp to a cult like degree. One has a small arsenal of weapons, preps and believes the virus is a hoax. The other is in the mode that trumpcorp can do no wrong. Thankfully is dont see them that much. things are still cordial as 4 years ago i responded to a question about Trumpcorp and i simply said Trumpcorp is a complete ass and a moron and that ended the conversation

lolol

Sometimes the Mrs tells me to keep quiet around her relatives, i just cant help my self to respond when their this batshit crazy and direct a comment to me 🙂

https://twitter.com/DavePerrino/status/1329144369245421571?s=19

I guess being wrong on elections isnt his only specialty

One complaint in NYC is why are restaurants open when schools are closed. Also there is a large group of parents who want the schools to open because they don’t believe that remote learning works as well and because they have few options for taking care of children when they are home. It’s a very contentious issue that nonparent Nate really should not get involved in.

Also to be fair, it wasn’t really Silver that was wildly off, it was the polls, which he does not conduct, that were terrible for “whatever” reason. He just is an aggregator, bad data in, bad data out.

On a side note, a pet peeve I have about the articles about polling errors is that they claim that it’s now two elections in a row that the polling has been really bad. Actually, in 2016, although the polling really missed on some states (e.g. WI), national polling right before the election was not far off—only 1 point, well within what happened in previous elections. This election looks like the national numbers were off by around 4 points, almost double any other election. Unlike in 2016, when Clinton’s support was cratering at the end, there was absolutely no indication that Biden’s lead was going down. Also the same state polls that were off in 2016 were even more wildly off in 2020 (e.g. WI)

Reliable Marquette was way off in WI

This yahoo needs to be ignored. If the sports crowd wants to follow him again, their choice.

NYCVG

Nate’s a jerk but in this case I agree with him.

NYC schools are closed for NO good reason that I can see.

The infection rate in NYC schools is tiny and parents get to decide for themselves about their own kids. Your’e afraid? Keep you child home.

Teachers don’t have a choice, though. I follow Trekker Teach on twitter and i have to say that I’m with the teachers on this. People need it for daycare and because, frankly, many are unused to dealing with their children all day, and honestly, that means teachers are also frontline workers. They are more vocal about the unfairness and danger this presents. imho 🙂

NYCVG

I see the teachers point. (retired teacher,here.)

Also a lot of teachers 55+ with pre existing conditions that may kill them if the get covid. A few in my area retired rather than take the risk

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/18/bidens-cabinet-appointments-resist-centrists

In reality, corporate executives and lobbyists are only “consensus” cabinet picks among their fellow CEOs and corporate lawyers: by a staggering 2 to 1 margin, voters of all stripes – including Republicans – say that Biden should not hire big business executives to run his government. If democracy means anything in this country – and the 2020 election’s jaw-dropping turnout means the people still believe in democracy – Biden cannot pick a corporate cabinet. It’s perhaps the one issue on which Americans are united.
And so long as Biden resists the pressure to sell his executive branch out to the highest bidder, there’s still plenty he can do to improve average people’s lives without trying to appease McConnell.
Biden’s Plan B for filling out a cabinet involves the Vacancies Act, which lets the president temporarily make a senior staffer at a given agency the secretary, or bring a different Senate-confirmed individual (like the many Democratic commissioners at independent agencies like the Federal Trade Commission) into the cabinet job temporarily. He can also make appointments while the Senate is in recess, as presidents of both parties do all the time. Biden could even force the Senate into recess by playing a bit of constitutional hardball – the kind of hardball McConnell plays constantly.
Likewise, corporate America might want you to think that a Republican Senate means that any hope of tackling big business’s abuses – and thus improving working conditions, cleaning air and drinking water, and granting Americans a life of economic dignity – is now gone. These fatalists ask how exactly Biden is supposed to get these policies past McConnell, failing to mention that Biden doesn’t need to.
Biden’s treasury department can implement financial regulations to impede investments in the fossil fuel industry and reallocate funds to tackle Covid-19 and provide support to the most harmed Americans. Biden’s justice department can prosecute Big Oil companies or seek breakups of corporate monopolies. Biden’s labor department can enforce OSHA rules and crack down on wage theft like never before, making sure people’s hard-earned wages actually make it into their pockets. His IRS can focus on ensuring the rich pay their fair share, instead of auditing poor Americans making mistakes on their taxes. He can even, with one directive to his acting education secretary, cancel 95% of student loan debt. There are at least 277 actions broadly popular within both wings of the Democratic party which Biden could take on day one of his administration. And he needn’t even walk near a McConnell-controlled Senate to do them.
Yet all of these actions depend on Biden appointing committed soldiers for the public good – not corporate allies. A treasury secretary Gina Raimondo would prioritize slashing aid to struggling cities in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, as she has in her home state. If ex-Googlers like Roger Ferguson or Eric Schmidt pepper the executive branch, it will undercut the authority of the most important antitrust suit in a generation. Appointing Seth Harris to labor secretary will give the intellectual architect of California’s Prop 22 an insider’s angle to spread pain for gig-economy workers.
Stopping these people must be a priority for the Democratic base. Activists can and should make clear to Biden that their repayment for hard work should be a highly-motivated and public interest-minded executive branch.
Executive actions represent the best hope for aggressively tackling our many interlinked crises – not to mention the best hope for Biden’s party to stand any chance in the 2022 and 2024 elections. The Democrats must have something to show for the trust the American people has placed in them. Failure in the coming years could mean a second Trump term, or worse: a new far-right nationalist who is better organized and more serious than Trump.
Biden and the Democrats can only defeat such a threat by showing the American people that, yes, their government is still capable of improving their lives in tangible, substantive ways. Executive authority provides Biden with no shortage of ways to do that – but only if he resists the false “bipartisanship” that corporate lobbyists are furiously pushing across Washington. Such individuals cannot populate a Biden cabinet.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/19/dear-joe-biden-are-you-kidding-me-erin-brockovich

Erin Brockovich

For years, I’ve been trying to impart a simple concept that Superman is not coming.
Dare I say, I had hopes that this new administration would usher in the dawning of a new day. As picks for President-elect Joe Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) transition team were announced, I felt concerned and disheartened about a chemical industry insider being on the list. Are you kidding me?
Michael McCabe, a former employee of Biden and a former deputy Environmental Protection Agency administrator, later jumped ship to work as a consultant on communication strategy for DuPont during a time when the chemical company was looking to fight regulations of their star chemical perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) also known as C8. The toxic manmade chemical is used in everything from waterproof clothes, stain-resistant textiles and food packaging to non-stick pans. The compound has been linked to lowered fertility, cancer and liver damage. The Guardian reported this week that Harvard school of public health professor Philippe Grandjean, who studies environmental health, warns that PFAS chemicals, of which PFOA is one, might reduce the efficacy of a Covid-19 vaccine.
This smells of the dawn of the same old. To quote the Who: meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
It should go without saying that someone who advised DuPont on how to avoid regulations is not someone we want advising this new administration.

What will it take to get our leadership to work with the people?
Stop working against and separately from your communities. Put your transition team on the ground and make them talk with those affected by these chemicals. Go out and see for yourself, learn and hear from those who you represent about what the heck is happening to them on the ground – those living and breathing in the toxic mess we have created.
It is time to keep your promise and give the people a voice and a seat the table in order to find a meaningful solution for the environment and for the people. Don’t close the door on us again.
We are in this mess because we continue to do the same old thing.
Let us not forget where these chemicals came from and who is responsible for putting them in our environment. Let us not bring the fox back into the hen house. DuPont executives should have no place in the Environmental Protection Agency.
I call on Joe Biden to do the right thing.

Good luck, Erin! (Derisive snort)

Exactly what planet does this writer live on? Byedone is the Turd Way’s poster child. Only slightly better than the orange maggot.

Maybe the Senator would be less worried about her election if she spent her time actually helping the American people instead of breaking ethics rules and campaigning using taxpayer resources. https://t.co/atOrq5mvOj
— Katie Porter (@katieporteroc) November 19, 2020

https://www.theatlantavoice.com/articles/report-sen-perdue-supported-defense-contractor-and-later-sold-stock/

Wednesday evening, The Daily Beast released a bombshell report on Sen. David Perdue’s (R-Ga.) latest stock trading scandal, which exposed how Perdue appeared to use his position as the Chairman of the Senate Seapower Subcommittee. Perdue was named chairman in 2019.
According to the report, Perdue purchased nearly $190,000 worth of stock in BWX Technologies, a Virginia-based company that has lucrative contracts with the U.S. Navy to develop high-tech components for its fleet of nuclear submarines. When the National Defense Authorization Act was passed later in the year, BWX Technologies stood to be in a great position to benefit.
In response to the report, Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff said, “David Perdue’s corruption and self-dealing are flagrant. He is blatantly exploiting his office to line his own pockets. This conduct is utterly inexcusable.”
According to the report by The Daily Beast, Perdue secured $4.7 billion for Virginia-class submarines. While touting the NDAA bill, Perdue was selling his BWX holdings. According to financial disclosures, Perdue reported earnings of $15,000 to $50,000 in his trading of BWX.
Kedric Payne, who analyzes stock trades at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan money-in-politics advocacy group, said Perdue’s example is the very reason why many lawmakers avoid trading individual stocks.

Another one spending way to much time with Blue Horseshoe

Mebbe the insider trading white trash rich bimbo will get defeated?