The Progressive Wing

Tip jar for obf!

The Senate voted 92-6 on the 5000+ page bill.

Here’s who voted Nay:

Blackburn (R-TN)
Cruz (R-TX)
Johnson (R-WI)
Lee (R-UT)
Paul (R-KY)
Scott (R-FL)

They had nothing to lose.

Sick Rott probably couldn’t rip any $$ off.

Voted nay because it didn’t screw over the struggling enough

Yeah, I’m certain it didn’t have to do with the 500M to Israel. 833,000 people could have gotten more money or a $600 check of some sort with $500M.

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https://t.co/Irht2rI26u pic.twitter.com/EaI9OMiyq8
— David Windt (@DavidLWindt) December 22, 2020

yes, after a quick browse through, i have to say, there’s a lot of reliance on our warmongers for quotes. i must not have remembered that propublica can be this way?

For John Podesta, the profound geopolitical challenges posed by climate change first became clear in July 2008, not long before he took charge of President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team. That month, he took part in a war game hosted by the Center for New American Security, a Washington-based research group. The room was full of people who were, like him, awaiting their chance to reenter influential positions in the American government. Around the table in a private conference room at the Newseum in Washington, were former U.S. military officials, a former EPA administrator, advisers to Chinese intelligence officials, analysts from McKinsey and the Brookings Institution and at least one European diplomat. “Let me be very clear,” Podesta told the gathering, in his assigned role as the United Nations secretary general. “Our time is running out.”

they need to worry less about Russia and more about the actual fracking climate. 2008 and Podesta is worried.

My first thought is yay, food not oil for Russia. My second thought, if we stopped being such bombed up bullies, maybe countries wouldn’t want to overpower us. gd

magsview

For a different reaction on that article:

"We could spend less on fur coats, and the grain harvest would go up," Vladimir Putin says. Powerful and important reporting by @AbrahmL on why Russia stands to be the big global winner from climate change: https://t.co/IaLs8lB2l2
— Sammy Roth (@Sammy_Roth) December 19, 2020

One thing not being talked about in the MSM or progressive media either:

Democrats successfully fought to convert the CARES Act $10 billion loan
into direct funding for USPS without requiring repayment. These funds
will be used for operational costs and other expenses resulting from the
COVID-19 pandemic.

Source: WaPo

high achievement. glad to see it. i am genuinely curious as to how long that will last.

phatkhat

The Partridge Family is in my backyard! We’ve always fed the birds here, and believe me, the little buggers can EAT. But last year was the first year we ever had any quail (bobwhites, whatever you call them), and only two pairs. A couple of days ago, I looked out and there were a couple out there picking at the chops (cracked corn) we put out for the cardinals and jaybirds. Yesterday, there were too many to count, and they are here again today! I hope they stay here and don’t go where someone may want to shoot them for dinner. That, too, I do not understand. They are really small under the feathers, and there can’t be more than two bites. Why bother? And they’re really cute, too.

awww!

How COVID-19 Hollowed Out a Generation of Young Black Men

The Rev. Dr. Kejuane Artez Bates was a big man with big responsibilities. The arrival of the novel coronavirus in Vidalia, Louisiana, was another burden on a body already breaking under the load. Bates was in his 10th year with the Vidalia Police Department, assigned as a resource officer to the upper elementary school. But with classrooms indefinitely closed, he was back on patrol duty and, like most people in those early days of the pandemic, unprotected by a mask. On Friday, March 20, he was coughing and his nose was bleeding. The next day, he couldn’t get out of bed.
Bates was only 36, too young to be at risk for COVID-19, or so the conventional wisdom went. He attributed his malaise to allergies and pushed forward with his second full-time job, as head pastor of Forest Aid Baptist Church, working on his Sunday sermon between naps. Online church was a new concept to his parishioners, and during the next morning’s service, he had to keep reminding them to mute their phones. As he preached about Daniel in the lion’s den — we will be tested, but if we continue to have faith, we will come through — he grimaced from the effort. That night he was burning up with fever. Five days later he was on a ventilator; five days after that, he died.
While COVID-19 has killed 1 out of every 800 African Americans, a toll that overwhelms the imagination, even more stunning is the deadly efficiency with which it has targeted young Black men like Bates. One study using data through July found that Black people ages 35 to 44 were dying at nine times the rate of white people the same age, though the gap slightly narrowed later in the year. And in an analysis for ProPublica this summer using the only reliable data at the time accounting for age, race and gender, from Michigan and Georgia, Harvard researcher Tamara Rushovich found that the disparity was greatest in Black men. It was a phenomenon Enrique Neblett Jr. noticed when he kept seeing online memorials for men his age. “I’ll be 45 this year,” said the University of Michigan professor, who studies racism and health. “I wasn’t seeing 60- and 70-year-old men. We absolutely need to be asking what is going on here?”
To help illuminate this gap in knowledge and gain a deeper understanding of why America has lost so many young Black men to COVID-19, ProPublica spent months gathering their stories, starting with hundreds of news articles, obituaries and medical examiners’ reports, then interviewing the relatives and friends of nearly two dozen men, along with researchers who specialize in Black men’s health. Our efforts led us to a little-known body of research that takes its name from one of the most enduring symbols of Black American resilience.

magsview

Bizarre and tragic 🙁

Pondering the lessons of John Henry Martin, James began to see what many of his colleagues had been missing. It wasn’t just living in poverty that wore down Black men’s bodies, he hypothesized, but the struggle to break out of poverty. It wasn’t just inequality that made them sick, but the effort to be equal in a system that was fundamentally unjust. “It’s this striving to make something of themselves … to live their lives with dignity and purpose and to be successful against extraordinary circumstances,” James said. “They’re trying to make a way out of no way. It’s the Black American story.”

worth a look. some awesome gif graphics, too. man, so sad, tho. and angering.

phatkhat

No wonder the establishment wisdom was to “let it run its course”.

https://www.11alive.com/article/news/politics/elections/georgia-senate-runoff-poll-dems-leading-in-final-stretch/85-5995ef44-16a0-410e-9612-a45bd689b298

With the Jan. 5 runoff races now just a little more than a two weeks away, a final SurveyUSA Poll commissioned exclusively by 11Alive shows that Democratic candidates Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff are still holding onto their leads over Republican incumbents Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.
But, thanks to contributing factors like caustic rhetoric on the integrity of the election system, the races are still anyone’s to win.
According to the data, Ossoff has managed to widen his lead over Perdue since 11Alive’s last poll on the Senate runoff, conducted a little over two weeks ago. Ossoff now leads Perdue 51% to 46% among those polled – up from his 50-to-48% lead.
Meanwhile, in the other runoff race, Warnock’s lead over Loeffler remains unchanged from two weeks ago; he still holds a 52-to-45% lead. Both polls are within the margin of error, though.
At this moment, it appears both Democratic candidates may be benefitting from Republican infighting over who and what’s to blame for President Trump’s defeat in the Nov. 3 general election. Some in the GOP have laid blame at Republican leaders in Georgia and some extremist supporters of the president have suggested Republicans sit out the election.
Some Republican voters may be listening. According to the survey results, roughly 5% of the 690 registered voters are sitting out the election. More of those voters are Republican, with some believing either “the voting process is rigged” or that “their vote doesn’t matter.”

10K Georgians have died from COVID-19 and U.S. Senate Republicans are blocking Democrats from providing the relief our communities and local gov'ts need. We must vote them out.
Make your plan to vote for @ossoff and @ReverendWarnock today at https://t.co/2ON3Ox3lpc #gapol #gasen pic.twitter.com/g3chY4oe65
— Fair Fight (@fairfightaction) December 21, 2020

Only problem is Ossoff is a neoliberal Turd Way Dimocrat. Warnock is more of a real choice for voters as the white trash rich bimbo is a stupid joke. I hope they win but who knows?

ah yes, blame it on people recognizing that machines are a terrible way to pretend to have a democracy.

“But, thanks to contributing factors like caustic rhetoric on the integrity of the election system, the races are still anyone’s to win.”

Glad the guys are ahead.

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/531236-fauci-assume-new-covid-19-strain-is-in-us

Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, said early Tuesday that Americans should assume a new, more contagious strain of the coronavirus detected in the U.K. is already in the U.S.
It’s “certainly possible” that the strain is already present within the U.S., Fauci said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
“When you have this amount of spread within a place like the U.K., you really need to assume that it’s here already. … It certainly is not the dominant strain but I would certainly not be surprised at all if it is already here,” he said.
Fauci on Monday counseled against “overreacting” to the new strain and against a temporary travel ban in response.
Asked on Tuesday about those recommendations, he called travel bans “rather draconian,” noting that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) is also discussing the testing of all arrivals in New York City.
“That’s a big difference than completely shutting off travel and banning travel completely, which is really a rather dramatic step. That’s not really in the cards right now,” he said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/12/22/biden-wildlife-protections-trump/?utm_source=reddit.com

When President-elect Joe Biden walks through the door of the White House with his rescue dog, Major, he will inherit a Migratory Bird Treaty Act that no longer protects birds, a watered-down Endangered Species Act, and a policy that allows hunters in Alaska to crawl into bear and wolf dens to shoot mothers and their babies.
And that’s just in the United States.
The Trump administration has allowed importation of the carcasses of endangered elephants and rhinoceros, as well as lions, as hunting trophies — reversing a ban on the practice enacted when Biden was vice president under President Barack Obama.
Conservationists think President Trump has weakened federal protections for wildlife in a way that, in some cases, will take Biden years undo.
“For the past four years, the Trump administration worked overtime to weaken the Endangered Species Act, ignoring the warnings from scientists around the world that we’re in an unprecedented extinction crisis,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
In addition to weakening protections for wildlife, the Trump administration’s failure to try to mitigate climate change has further harmed animals, critic say. Scientists say a warming planet is resulting in habitat loss and an alarming rate of species extinction.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/12/22/pathetic-congress-passes-covid-relief-bill-billions-gifts-wealthy-600-checks-working

The entire Senate Democratic caucus and every Republican but six voted for the roughly $900 billion coronavirus relief legislation, which was paired with a $1.4 trillion spending package that will fund the federal government through next September. Just two House Democrats—Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii)—voted against the coronavirus relief portion of the sprawling package (pdf), which President Donald Trump is expected to sign.
“I voted against the latest Covid-19 relief legislation because it is woefully inadequate in addressing the needs of people,” Tlaib said in a statement late Monday. “I have watched as many of my colleagues rush to provide billions to corporations and wealthy individuals, while admonishing the needs of the majority of families.”
“Republicans continue to do all they can do to poison our society further with corporate greed, while abandoning the very people they are supposed to be working for,” Tlaib added. “This is evident by the inclusion of the ‘three martini lunch’ tax giveaway.”

“Pathetic,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), pointing to the bill’s $120 billion handout to rich business owners and other provisions that will disproportionately benefit the wealthiest people in the country during the most unequal recession in modern U.S. history.
The Vermont senator voted for the relief legislation, noting that “the average family of four will receive a direct payment of $2,400.”
“While including these direct payments ultimately improved this bill, given the enormous economic desperation that so many working families across this country are now experiencing, there is no question but that this legislation did not go anywhere near far enough,” Sanders said in a statement.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who voted for the final relief package, said late Monday that she is glad the legislation will provide direct payments that were not originally on the table as well as billions of dollars in funding for schools.
“But that doesn’t mean this package is anything close to enough,” said Omar. “Six hundred dollars is not close to sufficient to cover eight months of lost wages, food, or rent expenses… Mitch McConnell and his Republican colleagues have stonewalled state and local aid, along with survival checks that meet the scale of the crisis. This is a collective failure in helping Americans in their time of need.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/531169-mcconnell-says-hell-insist-liability-protections-are-in-any-2021-coronavirus

Hopefully, he won’t be majority leader

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Monday he will “insist” that any COVID-19 relief next year include protections against coronavirus-related lawsuits.
“I think liability relief is really important,” McConnell said during an interview with Dana Perino on Fox News. “And if there is another coronavirus relief bill after the first of the year, I’m going to insist that liability protection for these universities and health care providers is a part of it.”

What’s with Gabbard? She won’t be representing her district in the next Congress.

$600 is a slap in the face to every American struggling due to the pandemic. You deserve better.
I voted against the 5,593-page spending bill that gave billions to corporate interests, the military industrial complex & other countries, leaving crumbs for you who need help most. pic.twitter.com/82F1HYF43T
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) December 22, 2020

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/12/jimmy-dore-aoc-medicare-for-all-strategy.html

The author has no use for Dore, and he spends most of the article examining Brianna Joy Gray’s more “thoughtful” and “lucid” arguments for forcing a floor vote on M4A.

Dore’s proposal was not entirely absurd. AOC and other progressives did center calls for single-payer health care during their primary campaigns. The Democrats’ razor-thin majority in the new Congress does give these lawmakers leverage to extract demands from Pelosi in exchange for their support. We are in the middle of a pandemic in which millions of Americans have lost their employer-provided health care. So why not use one’s leverage to force a national debate over the progressive movement’s signature cause?
It’s important to be clear, however, about what this tactic could and could not have plausibly achieved. There is no rational basis for believing that forcing a House vote on Medicare for All would have led to the nationalization of the health-insurance industry next year. Nor is there much cause for thinking that it would have turned the Democratic base against its party’s moderate lawmakers by exposing their opposition to single-payer health care. In my estimation, the gambit would have, at best, served to direct media attention toward the cruelties of America’s employer-provided health-insurance system at a time when those cruelties are uniquely difficult to paper over. AOC opted to subordinate the pursuit of such a media spectacle to other aims, such as progressive committee appointments and the elimination of the “PAYGO rule.”
The fact that this decision has earned AOC the enmity of some influential progressive commentators reflects a pathological tendency within a small subset of the U.S. left — namely, a habit of mining anti-political cynicism out of its own naïveté.

I’m not convinced by Gray’s case for forcing a floor vote on single-payer and find its characterization of public opinion highly misleading. But I admit that, in the course of human history, political reality sometimes changes in a hurry. We are in an exceptional political moment (see how much social spending McConnell just sanctioned). So I can’t say with 100 percent certainty that she is wrong. But I am certain that it is intellectually dishonest and politically counterproductive for Dore and his kin to demand others bow to the certain truth of their punditry or reveal themselves to be traitors.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/22/us/politics/alex-padilla-kamala-california-senate.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&fbclid=IwAR2oq0FYmQZq71_kDGXSfpqUKQsU73TWSMOE6QC0oChBkHFmNIBxzUI0fww

Alex Padilla, California’s secretary of state, has been appointed to fill the Senate seat held by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Tuesday, capping months of intense political jockeying among Democratic factions in the state.
The son of Mexican-born immigrants who settled in Los Angeles’s San Fernando Valley, Mr. Padilla, 47, will be the first Latino senator from California, where Latinos are about 40 percent of the population.
“I am honored and humbled by the trust placed in me by Governor Newsom, and I intend to work each and every day to honor that trust and deliver for all Californians,” said Mr. Padilla in a statement.
“From those struggling to make ends meet to the small businesses fighting to keep their doors open to the health care workers looking for relief, please know that I am going to the Senate to fight for you. We will get through this pandemic together and rebuild our economy in a way that doesn’t leave working families behind.”
Mr. Newsom lauded Mr. Padilla’s long experience in public service. Mr. Padilla, an ally of the governor throughout his political career, has held public office since 1999, when he was elected at 26 to the Los Angeles City Council; he went on to serve two terms in the State Senate and then two terms as secretary of state, heading the office that runs California’s elections.
“Through his tenacity, integrity, smarts and grit, California is gaining a tested fighter in their corner who will be a fierce ally in D.C., lifting up our state’s values and making sure we secure the critical resources to emerge stronger from this pandemic,” said Mr. Newsom. “He will be a Senator for all Californians.”
The decision followed months of deliberation by Mr. Newsom and lobbying by California’s myriad political factions for a position whose occupant will need not only the experience to work effectively in Washington, but also the money and political base to hold the seat in 2022, when Ms. Harris’s term ends.
California progressives had pushed Mr. Newsom to appoint Representative Barbara Lee or another like-minded Democrat. Mr. Newsom was also under pressure to appoint a Black woman to take the place of Ms. Harris, the only Black woman in the Senate. Representative Karen Bass and Ms. Lee were at the top of that list.

https://healthyca.org/get-involved/california-single-payer-report-and-strategic-recommendations/

Not for M4A

The platform votes against Medicare for All by California Secretary of State Alex Padilla and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond reveal the disregard for the CA Democratic Party’s official support of single-payer, and the 88% support among national Democrats for Medicare for All.

LieparDestin

Bernie won California big with his platform so… stick someone in who works against that platform. Great politicking dems….

Hopefully Progressives coalesce around one primary opponent instead of running multiple candidates to split the vote.

Lovely. We get a younger version of Feinstein for 2 more years.

Guess we’ll see.

but of course.

phatkhat

Mr. Newsom lauded Mr. Padilla’s long experience in public service. Mr. Padilla, an ally of the governor throughout his political career,

Loyalty trumps all. But this tells me all I need to know about Padilla.

We did not challenge Obama and you know what we got? Trump.
Trump – https://t.co/rbneSb5HnX via @commondreams
— RoseAnn DeMoro (@RoseAnnDeMoro) December 21, 2020

Nothing like appointing a real clueless ambitious idiot for Secretary of Transportation. To the victor, go the spoils. 💩🤮

America's prestigious military school West Point has been shaken by its biggest cheating scandal in decades, with dozens of cadets accused of breaking the academy's honor code in the spring https://t.co/LN5QHVkgOE
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) December 22, 2020

they know how America and a lot of the world rolls. shame.

The U.S. recorded a million new COVID-19 cases in less than a week, as fears grow over a new, more transmissible variant of the virus in the U.K. https://t.co/7Y7gP84YYc @Reuters
— Joseph Ax (@josephax) December 22, 2020