The Progressive Wing

T and R, Ms. Benny!!🎄✊🎄✊☮️😊👍Is The Fool similar to The Onion?

No, just effing conservative.

they have their own credit card. or they used to. i used to have one, long ago.

phatkhat

Motley Fool is an “investment guide”. You pay lots of money for their advice, and they tell you what to invest in. And a lot of it sounds… skeevy.

Tip jar…

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/12/nina-turner-congress

The Black Caucus Unified With the Progressive Caucus? Watch Out, Baby”: Nina Turner, Progressive Disciple, Could Make Waves in Biden’s Congress

After weeks of rumors, prominent progressive and top Sanders ally Nina Turner announced her campaign for Ohio’s 11th Congressional district, Fudge’s old seat, pending Fudge’s confirmation. And Turner—who once likened voting for Biden over Trump to eating half “a bowl of shit” instead of the “whole thing”—has no patience for half measures as the COVID-19 crisis ravages the country, making societal inequities impossible to ignore. “The pandemic leaves no doubt that the system is rigged in this country…a system that does not benefit the poor, the working poor, and the barely-middle class,” she told me in an interview on Wednesday. “If people were hesitant before, there should be no hesitancy now. The pandemic has set everybody free who has the benefit of holding the people’s power to go bold or go home.”

Snip

Turner’s ideology predates her ascent in Bernieworld. “I guess progressive politics kind of found me even before the word progressive was cool,” she said. She recalled her parents passing out leaflets for Carl B. Stokes, the first Black mayor of Cleveland, and a get out the vote advocacy group she helped launch when she was a junior at Cleveland State University. She went on to work for former state senator Rhine McLin and former Cleveland mayor Mike White, then as director of government affairs for the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. In 2005, she won a seat on the Cleveland City Council before she was appointed to the Ohio Senate, where she later won a full term and was elected minority whip. In 2014, she lost a bid for Ohio Secretary of State. “As I reflect on my life thus far, you kind of look backwards a little bit, and little did I know that maybe that advocacy was actually preparing me for many other political moments,” she said.

More from that article

That’s the thing about Turner: She has no qualms about pissing off Democrats. “They will say this about me, that I’m not a real Democrat, even though you can go back to all of my service and see very clearly that I am a Democrat,” she said. “People may define [a Democrat] as somebody that doesn’t critique, somebody who just walks the line. That’s not me. I think you must critique the party to help it to be better. So [if] people interpret my critique as somehow making me not of the Democratic Party, they are wrong. I am an independent thinker. I have my own thoughts. I have my own agency. And I push because I care.”
Even in the progressive bubble, Turner is known for having sharp elbows. Her previous leadership of Our Revolution, the political group Sanders launched after his 2016 loss, has been the source of mixed reviews. One progressive source said Turner has a reputation for being “quick to criticize people to the right of Bernie, which is a lot of people in the progressive movement.” But her loyalty to the movement has never been in question. “She’s propelled by a kind of compassion that’s at once personal and political. Countless times, I’ve heard in her voice—not just the words but the tenor—a connection with people who are anything but abstract to her even though she’s never met them,” Solomon said. “Anyone who thinks that Nina Turner is harsh or strident doesn’t get who she is, what makes her tick. She’s tough in the service of human gentleness and caring. Just what we need in a political arena dominated by uncaring and often cruel forces.”

actually, people to the right of Bernie are pretty much liberals. but generally seems like a darn good article.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/12/19/catastrophe-millions-workers-mcconnell-trying-block-extension-paid-sick-and-family

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is reportedly standing in the way of a Democratic effort to extend federal paid sick and family leave benefits that are set to expire at the end of the year, potentially stripping key emergency assistance from tens of millions of Americans and depriving the nation of an effective tool in the fight against Covid-19.
Democratic lawmakers are seeking an extension of the paid leave programs in the $900 billion coronavirus relief package currently under negotiation, but Buzzfeed reported late Friday that McConnell is leading the Republican effort to ensure the provisions expire.
“Democrats initially sought to broaden the scope of the program and extend it,” Buzzfeed noted. “Those goals were lowered to merely extending the program for several more months due to Republican opposition, according to one Senate aide. Now Republicans, led by McConnell, are opposing an expansion of the program altogether.”
Approved in March as part of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), the paid sick and family leave programs have helped prevent thousands of coronavirus cases per day despite their severe limitations; before the benefits were approved, Republicans ensured that companies with 500 or more employees would not be required to provide them to workers exposed to or infected by Covid-19.
“There is absolutely no reason, and no excuse, for failing to extend the lifesaving and bipartisan paid leave policy that is already on the books,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the author of an amendment that would have expanded the paid leave benefits to all U.S. employees and independent contractors, told Buzzfeed.
Murray said that “anything less” than an extension of the current benefits “would make absolutely no sense and be a catastrophe for millions of workers who shouldn’t have to choose between their health or their paycheck.”

phatkhat

The Covid is FAR worse now than it was then. This is unconscionable.

yep, just had someone a little closer than before, but not very close, lose her dad. i’ve only met her on zoom a couple of times, and we are both on a nightly gratitude text message group, but damn, it seems to get closer and closer. it’s really sad and we aren’t acknowldeging it as a country. imagine if this many soldiers had died in a war!

wi62

Now that Trumpcorp will be gone, Moscow Mitch aka the turtle and Pelousy are the next ones that have to go, for those two looks like a stroke or some other medical issue is the only way they will go, the voters in their states are to stupid to see their past their expiration date

phatkhat

Pelosi has a lot of rich people like her in her district. Not enough poor ones. And Shahid made some mistakes, which, combined with the DNC smear campaign did him in with a lot of people who might have supported him.

McConnell… Well there is the issue with the voting machines. And the DNC did in the opponent who could have spoken to the people and been believed. My theory is that the DNC wanted McConnell to win. He’s their scapegoat – and he relishes the role.

la58

This is a email Yesterday afternoon, I asked my colleagues in the Senate to unanimously agree to pass my legislation guaranteeing an emergency payment of $1,200 to every working class American and $500 to each of their children.

Republican Senator Ron Johnson objected, citing the deficit.

It is comical that in this time of crisis, Ron Johnson and my Republican colleagues suddenly discover that we have a deficit.

But I wonder. Where was Ron Johnson and Senate Republican concerns about the deficit when they passed a $1 trillion tax cut for some of the wealthiest people and corporations in this country?

Where was their concern about the deficit when, at a time climate change threatens this entire planet, Congress gives hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate welfare to oil, gas and coal companies that exacerbate the climate crisis?

Where was the concern about the deficit when, just this week, Congress passed legislation that would provide $740 billion to the military — the largest military budget in history and more than the next ten nations combined. Where was their concern for the deficit then?

My Republican colleagues believe that we can provide massive tax breaks to billionaires, give hundreds of billions in corporate welfare, and pass the largest military budget in history — and that’s okay. But, in the midst of the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression, Congress cannot respond effectively to the needs of working families because of the deficit. What hypocrisy!

Here is the truth:

Congress must not leave Washington, D.C. and head back to our families unless we address the pain and anxiety of millions of other families across the country.

And that starts with putting money directly into their pockets with a direct payment of at least $1,200 per working class American, and $500 for each of their children.

Add your name if you agree:

Sign my petition: tell Congress they must provide emergency payments to every working class American of $1,200, no less, and $500 for each of their children before we leave for holiday recess.

This is not a radical idea.

This is an idea that is supported by President Donald Trump and President-elect Joe Biden. It is an idea that, according to a recent poll, is supported by 75 percent of Americans, including 72 percent of Republicans.

This amount in direct payments is exactly what Congress passed unanimously just nine months ago.

It is an amount that was included in legislation proposed in a $1.1 trillion offer by Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell just a few months ago.

For nine months we have asked tens of millions of working people to survive on one $1,200 check provided in the CARES Act, meanwhile over that same nine-month period there are 651 billionaires in the United States who became $1 trillion richer.

That’s $1 trillion for the wealthiest Americans and one $1,200 check for tens of millions struggling to survive.

That is unconscionable and it has got to change.

So I am asking:

Sign my petition: tell Congress they must provide emergency payments to every working class American of $1,200, no less, and $500 for each of their children before we leave for holiday recess.

If our democracy means anything, if our United States government means anything, then we cannot turn our backs on the suffering of people in Wisconsin, Vermont, Oklahoma, or any other place in this country where people are hurting in an unprecedented way.

Thank you for making your voice heard.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders https://act.berniesanders.com/signup/1200-dollars/?source=em201219-1-15&refcode2=8524.17585.y0ntQC&akid=8524%2E17585%2Ey0ntQC

Signed and hope it helps…..somehow.

ditto.

phatkhat

Me, too.

https://www.businessinsider.com/aoc-amazon-jobs-scam-food-stamps-no-financial-security?utm_source=reddit.com

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Friday said Amazon’s jobs are a “scam” because they’re not creating financial security for workers.
“A ‘job’ that leaves you homeless & on food stamps isn’t a job. It’s a scam,” she said on Twitter.
Ocasio-Cortez referenced a Bloomberg News report detailing how many Amazon warehouse workers struggle to pay bills, with as many as 4,000 on food stamps.
The report said Amazon has turned logistics work from a professional career option to “entry-level” work for many. As Amazon’s workforce has soared during the pandemic, safety conditions in its warehouses have failed to keep pace, according to the report.
“This is why ‘Amazon jobs’ aren’t it & we should instead focus our public investments + incentives on small businesses, public infrastructure, & worker cooperatives that actually support dignified life,” said Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter.

Guess ole SOB Bezos learned off the Waltons how to scam the Feds into feeding his underpaid and ripped off workers on food stamps. What a bunch of human garbage these yahoos are. 💩💩💩

https://www.dcreport.org/tag/senate/

For PB

Even as Republicans across the country still insist that the election was rife with fraudulent Democratic votes, no one’s asking how McConnell managed one of the most lopsided landslides of the Nov. 3 election. They should. An investigation of Kentucky voting results by DCReport raises significant questions about the vote tallies in McConnell’s state.
McConnell racked up huge vote leads in traditionally Democratic strongholds, including counties that he had never before carried.
There were wide, unexplained discrepancies between the vote counts for presidential candidates and down-ballot candidates.
Significant anomalies exist in the state’s voter records. Forty percent of the state’s counties carry more voters on their rolls than voting-age citizens.
Kentucky and many other states using vote tabulation machines made by Election Systems & Software all reported down-ballot race results at significant odds with pre-election polls.

Then there is the question of why a county like Breathitt has more registered voters than it has people of voting age? 2019 population data show Breathitt County had 12,630 people with approximately 23% below the voting age of 18. This means approximately 9,700 people are of voting age, yet there are 11,497 registered voters. Having 100% of the voting-age population registered would be astounding enough, but Breathitt County appears to have almost 120% more registered voters than age-eligible citizens. And looking further, it appears this is not limited to Breathitt.
In November 2017, Judicial Watch, a right-wing non-partisan foundation promoting transparency, sued Kentucky over its “Dirty Voter Rolls” and its failure to maintain accurate voter registration lists. The suit argued that 48 of the 120 Kentucky counties had more registered voters than citizens over the age of 18 and alleged that Kentucky was one of only three states with a statewide active registration rate greater than 100% of the age-eligible citizen population. Kentucky’s inflated voter rolls and lack of transparency provide a perfect cover for malfeasant behavior regarding the election results.
Turning an 18% approval into a 58% win may seem like a “turning water into wine”-style miracle, but a “smoke & mirrors” parlor trick seems more likely. To better understand how the data could have been manipulated, look no further than Trump’s own legal filings. In an incompetent post-election lawsuit, the Trump team may have intended to accuse Democrats of election fraud, but in describing a possible plot, they attributed the cheating to Trump himself.
In a Dec. 4 filing in Georgia, Trump’s legal team referred to a “machine-controlled algorithm deliberately run” by a voting machine vendor, Dominion Voting Systems. They allege this algorithm “generally took more than 2.5% of the votes from Mr. Biden and flipped them to Mr. Trump.” So Trump’s own legal team, instead of providing evidence of fraud by Biden’s side, may have inadvertently revealed fraud benefiting Trump. In describing a deliberate, vendor installed, machine-controlled algorithm automatically taking a percentage of Biden’s votes and giving them to Trump, they certainly are outlining how fraud could have been executed.
Trump’s team claims Dominion was the machine vendor embedding algorithms to “flip” votes but is Trump pointing to one machine vendor to distract from another?
In Kentucky, when looking at counties where the numbers leap out on behalf of Mitch McConnell, none used Dominion machines. Most used machines from Election Systems & Software (ES&S), a Dominion competitor. If you swap ES&S for Dominion in the alleged vote-flipping scheme, you may arrive at an alternate explanation for why Amy McGrath’s numbers weren’t lining up and correlating with Biden’s.
To steal an election it may make sense to use different algorithms for each race on the ballot so results did not appear to be uniform. Knowing the McGrath-McConnell race faced more nationwide scrutiny, schemers might have had to miscount votes by different margins in the presidential and Senate races. Flipping more votes from Biden to Trump than McGrath votes to McConnell would explain her getting approximately 20% more votes than the Democratic presidential candidate.
Significantly, Trump and his post-election legal team have pointed at Dominion voting machines and implored courts to look into this automated vote-flipping premise—but only in states that he lost. So, let’s test it in ES&S states like Kentucky where Trump won.
McConnell had his biggest percentage of registered Democrats voting Republican in counties using ES&S machines. But he wasn’t the only senator to perform so well. Other Republican incumbents, whom polls indicated would have close races, had similar luck to their majority leader on Election D8thay.
Lindsey Graham’s race in South Carolina was so tight that he infamously begged for money, yet he won with a comfortable 10% lead—tabulated on ES&S machines throughout the state. In Susan Collins’ Maine, where she never had a lead in a poll after July 2, almost every ballot was fed through ES&S machines. Kentucky, South Carolina, Maine, Texas, Iowa and Florida are all states that use ES&S machines. Maybe the polls didn’t actually get it wrong.
When Trump says “look over here” at Dominion voting machines, maybe we should look at ES&S machines instead. When Republicans spout unfounded claims that Democrats stole the election, maybe we should be looking at Republican vote totals instead. And when Trump calls this the most fraudulent election in our history, maybe he knows of what he speaks.

Still does not excuse the rampant voter suppression by the DNC in the Booker-McGrath Dimocratic Primary. Look at all the KY precincts that were deliberately closed on Primary Day. A lot were in areas that favored Booker.

phatkhat

Repeating myself, LOL. My theory is that the DNC wanted McConnell to win. He’s their scapegoat – and he relishes the role.

YES!!!! now why doesn’t the MSM see what could be a yuuuge upheaval and scandal as juicy? 🤔

and gosh, we could get our democracy back.

Sen. Ron Johnson objected to my bill to provide $1,200 to working families and $500 for kids because he's "worried" about the deficit. Funny. He wasn't so worried about the deficit when he voted to give $1 trillion in tax breaks to the 1% and large corporations. What hypocrisy!
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) December 19, 2020

David Perdue opposes $1200 relief checks for Georgians.
Let’s make sure every Georgia voter hears the Senator’s message loud and clear.
— Jon Ossoff (@ossoff) December 19, 2020

So the asshole Senator is Warner. No surprise

However, in response to criticisms from the left, Senator Warren said of his progressive colleagues, “These are folks who never negotiated any deal that I think has ever been successful.” The concern, of course, is that the objections could lead to no bill passing at all — even as President-elect Biden pushes for stimulus to pass, even if it’s imperfect.
Warner pointed out that for now, Republicans remain in control of the White House and Senate, and that party leaders hadn’t even been negotiating until the new bipartisan plan helped break the logjam. He defended the proposal as “a piece of good work,” and reiterated that the “alternative would have been to have people get kicked off of unemployment, get kicked out of their apartments, not get the food assistance needed.”
Warner’s concerns extend beyond the fear that progressive objections could derail the proposed bill. He also takes issue with the focus on stimulus checks. “Where I differ with some of these so-called progressives — they were willing to take away money or accept taking money away from the unemployed to give out, in stimulus checks with Donald Trump’s name on it, to some folks who quite frankly have not suffered [much] economic harm,” he said on MSNBC on Thursday.

Who exactly is this bribed DINO talking about? Surely, it’s not all the craporations and gazillionaires who made out like thieves in the CARES act which he supported?

lolol! yeah! if only someone on MSM would say–folks who have not suffered much–you mean THESE guys?”

The Lost History of One of the World’s Strangest Science Experiments
The hummingbirds were dying. Cockroaches were everywhere. And then Steve Bannon showed up.

Meeeeaaaaaans testing coming up!lol all of us freeloaders out here because our teeth aren’t falling out. oh wait.

Don midwest

Bruno Latour putting on an exhibit in Taiwan

Here is a short overview. Be sure and use CC for Closed Captions

Not as easy to access as the e-flux special issue https://t.co/ZKlVsm7Gdj, the Taipei biennale "You & I don't live on the same planet", curated by Martin Guinard (& BL) may be glimpsed at through this teaser https://t.co/JkA5b9g1Bz
— BrunoLatour (@BrunoLatourAIME) December 19, 2020

Articles that look like a catalog of the conference are here

e-flux

there are several interesting articles in vol 114 of this publication. They start with an introduction by Bruno and others

He points out that Taiwan is an example of extreme climate action, politics and cultural issues and finding a way to survive are lessons for how the rest of us as we face Gaia.

Don midwest

the article by Latour and a few others “coping with planetary wars” in in the e-flux journal, notes that Steve Bannon, yes that Steve Bannon, was brought in as a turn around agent into biosphere 2. The project in the AZ desert to find out how to live in an insolated environment. He was a financial consultant and the project was loosing money

Don midwest

I don’t think that I posted this before

Is There a Crisis of Truth?

makes important points

science deniers use scientific approach to argue their position

we rely on who we trust. We don’t understand the depth of science work. The difference between science deniers and the rest of us

Rather, a difference between the two — and a consideration pertinent to links between expert Truth and political consequences — isn’t knowing science but knowing where science lives: who to recognize as knowledgeable and reliable; who to trust; which institutions to consider as the homes of genuine knowledge. Knowing this sort of thing — call it a kind of social knowledge — is a different matter than knowing the laws of motion, the nucleotide makeup of DNA, or the statistical means of determining global temperature and establishing its rate of change. This type of knowledge involves rightly knowing the scientific reputation of institutions; rightly knowing the integrity of those who testify to those reputations; rightly knowing the ascribed virtues and vices of the institutions and their procedures; and even rightly knowing the personal characteristics and material interests of the spokespersons for these institutions and those who testify to their qualities. It involves knowing whose opinion to take, and to take seriously, about matters of which you happen to be ignorant. That sort of knowledge isn’t technical, and people might say that it isn’t scientific, or even that it isn’t really knowledge — but almost all of the technical knowledge that we have is held on that basis. In the distant past, I did advanced scientific work (in genetics, as it happens), but — and I speak here just for myself — everything that I know about climate change, including my knowing that Trump is wrong, is held courtesy of this social knowledge. Being a knowledgeable person may mean knowing a lot of stuff, but it certainly means knowing who knows and who does not know. [8]

there are important italics at various places in the above paragraph. Not included. Start of next paragraph…

Given the demography of the learned world, it’s possible that practically everybody reading this essay possesses that knowledge and shares in the judgments following from it. So, it might be thought, this social knowledge is easy to obtain, with no special expertise required. Admittedly, there is no course of dedicated study to acquire such knowledge, but it’s not easy to obtain and almost impossible effectively to communicate to those who happen not already to have it. People who have this knowledge appear as people like us, possessed of common sense and adequately sound judgment, sharing in our stocks of self-evidence, their minds competently supplied with fit-for-purpose cultural furniture. To know the likely sources of Truth is to be a certain sort of person. And that’s why it’s so hard to understand what it’s like to be someone who knows otherwise — for example, someone who finds the MMR vaccine unacceptably risky. But how do you write down and effectively communicate knowledge held in that way? How do you justify it in the public culture? Believe Harvard climate scientists and don’t believe their peers at Eastern Kentucky Baptist University or at Exxon Mobil. Prefer The New York Times to Breitbart News……..

Author of the article is a Harvard Historian of science

For those not reading carefully, I said "an obstacle to justice, just like the GOP."
That's a 2-part sentence.
I never argue Dems and Repubs are identical. They're not. It's much more complex. But they both serve wealthy masters, and they are both obstacles to justice.
— Peter Daou (@peterdaou) December 19, 2020

Sen. Ron Johnson objected to my bill to provide $1,200 to working families and $500 for kids because he's "worried" about the deficit. Funny. He wasn't so worried about the deficit when he voted to give $1 trillion in tax breaks to the 1% and large corporations. What hypocrisy!
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) December 19, 2020

oops, dupe! Sorry!

bears repeating.

👍 T and R, and Thanks, Ms. Benny for manning the Nest this weekend before 🎄! ☮️✊😊👍

Total loss of summer Arctic ice will begin to occur by 2035 (give or take 13 or 14 years) threatening global food security due to major jet stream disruption causing unpredictable crop-wrecking extreme weather events throughout the Northern Hemisphere where most food is produced. pic.twitter.com/CFy9llCC4q
— Ben See (@ClimateBen) December 19, 2020

NYCVG

The NY Times magazine has a long detailed piece about how Russia will be the world’s food basket as climate change has opened vast areas of formerly frozen and inhospitable land to farming.

Drought in the US means our arable land is shrinking. Our water supply has been/is being sold off to private interests. This does not bode well for the majority of our citizens.

OTOH, Russia’s vast reaches are opening up. Each year as more thaw occurs, Russia is opening farms up.

phatkhat

Hubs’ weekly run takes him across Texas and New Mexico. He says that area is steadily getting greener in the years he’s had the route. He’s encountered a lot more rain than 7-8 years ago. Maybe the patterns are shifting.

polarbear4

Well that explains the war hysteria

linkie? :o)

well, i keep wanting to make excuses, like let’s see what she says at the speeches, but we won’t know, will we? Bernie shunned these bc he felt it bought a part of him.

pic.twitter.com/GDecIGH0yx
— Some Argentine guy (@dsal1829) December 19, 2020

in case you can’t read it, apparently some entity is representing her to line her up to speak to corporate audiences.

please dear god, let her take it to them!

phatkhat

As I’ve said before, she’s becoming an accomplished politician. I suppose the Hill does that to people unless they ARE rock solid, like Bernie.