Recall elections are being turned into a tool by the right because they are easier to win than a regular election
The press got what it wanted. crime went DOWN – violent crime is DOWN and property crime is DOWN since Chesa took office – and yet the press manufactured consent for the idea that crime was up and Chesa was to blame. We live in a post-truth world of the press’ making. https://t.co/IDZ9d12tlP
Also I think you can make a very reasonable argument that San Francisco is simply more conservative than Philadelphia when it comes to criminal justice (and housing) politics at this point.
In better election news, Katie Porter is leading with 51% of the vote over her Republican primary challengers, which indicates that she is in the driver’s seat for the general election. Karen Bass has advanced to the general election in LA against billionaire conservative Dem Rick Caruso who spent millions of his money on the election, outspending Bass 25-1. Right now it’s Caruso leading 42-37 but there’s tons more votes to count in a mail in state.
Strongest acknowledgment yet that Trump attempted a coup. If you're afraid to let base see the evidence for themselves, that suggests it's very strong. https://t.co/EJd5HEZhA6
We all know FN is mainly propaganda, thus, I’m not surprised they are concerned with ratings. This probably would not bode well for the network. Not defending them, but I also think the hearings will do zero for the Dems when it comes to the midterms. FN is also taking that bet. Benghazi helped the GOP, despite Clinton’s strong testimony in the many hearings.
Big deal, it a muslim or anyone else for that matter doent want that phrase on a gun a Dremel tool will erase all of that with a little grinding and paint. Why do they have war and peace on it as most of these nut jobs dont want peace as thier penile extension would have no use then.
What if all those repeated shots are about securing the peace? I’m more than a bit confused by this, and I’m not caught up in all that. Religion claims to be all about peace, while it often resorts to war. Maybe some need the rationalization to start totin’ arms for Jesus.
If you ask me it’s all about the crazy playing off the crazy.
A new dark-money group spending against progressive challengers is suspiciously well aligned with powerful Democrats https://t.co/a678nFdFH7 by @akela_lacy
A DARK-MONEY GROUP formed by longtime Democratic operatives has spent more than half a million dollarssince May to back conservative Democrats in safe blue seats in three upcoming primaries, according to its most recent disclosures — and is boosting another by spending to attack their main Republican opponent. Opportunity for All Action Fund, which incorporated in August, represents yet another incursion into dark money and outside spending from mainstream Democrats desperate to defend against progressive challengers.
Each incumbent backed by Opportunity for All Action Fund is facing a primary challenge from their left: Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., is facing Kina Collins, an organizer and anti-gun violence activist who first challenged him in 2020; Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., is facing Amy Vilela, who ran unsuccessfully in a Nevada Democratic congressional primary in 2018; on Tuesday, Rep. Donald Payne Jr., D-N.J., beat organizer Imani Oakley and Akil Khalfani, a professor who ran against him in the 2020 primary as an independent.
The cutout has not revealed who ultimately decided to launch the operation or who is funding it, but several public details give clues about its origins. For one, each of the incumbents is also backed by Team Blue PAC, launched last June by House Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries of New York, New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer, and Alabama Rep. Terri Sewell to protect caucus members facing primary challenges. Team Blue PAC endorsed five incumbents in February and has given $5,000 to each of their campaigns, including Davis, Titus, Payne, and Reps. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Shontel Brown, D-Ohio, who beat former state Sen. Nina Turner last month. Jeffries campaigned alongside Davis in Chicago last week, and also campaigned for Payne and Brown.
Opportunity for All Action Fund also spent in an effort to defeat Frank Pallotta, the winner of the Republican primary who will face Gottheimer, one of the Democratic caucus’s most conservative members and Team Blue PAC’s co-founder, in November.
The slew of spending comes as Jeffries and Gottheimer escalate an ongoing battle with the progressive wing of the party and Jeffries pursues a path toward becoming House speaker or minority leader, replacing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi when she eventually retires.
I want to know how many people pushing for school districts to buy guns for teachers are also pushing to buy school supplies that hundreds of thousands of underpaid teachers across the nation have to buy for their students out of their own pockets because school boards won’t.
In April, a memo surfaced from former Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir telling allies that “in the event of an open 2024 Democratic presidential primary, Sen. Sanders has not ruled out another run for president.” A few weeks later, NBC reported that, according to Sanders’s team, “his campaign fires are burning hot.”
In an ideal world, Sanders would be in a position to challenge Biden for the nomination regardless of whether or not the president runs again. But if Biden chooses to step down after one term, Senator Sanders absolutely must make one final run for president.
Part of the case is practical. Sanders remains the most popular active politician in America. I might not be writing this article if there were a clear successor to run in his place, even if that successor were less popular but younger. But there isn’t one. There is no other high-profile US politician today — anywhere in the Democratic Party, let alone on the Left — with Sanders’s experience, worldview, and ability to talk to and persuade people whoever and wherever they are.
For the senator himself, there are also good reasons to run again. Campaigns are about winning for Sanders, but they’ve also been about raising the profile of ideas that traditionally have found little purchase in presidential politics. That includes ideas he’s championed virtually his entire career, like single-payer health care, union rights, and limiting the power and influence corporations and the wealthy have over the destinies of ordinary people.
And sadly, a Democratic lineup without Sanders means those ideas will either go undiscussed or have their prospects seriously dented. You only need to look at the 2020 primary, many of whose candidates jumped on the Medicare for All bandwagon only because Sanders was in the race, before swiftly backing away the minute they got serious heat for it, and forgetting about it entirely once he was out. Even his closest ideological compatriot, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, often garbled the case for the idea, struggling to emulate Sanders’s clear, commonsense case for replacing private insurance premiums with taxes.
Meanwhile, a Sanders 2024 run would come in the midst of rising labor militancy that has seen workers successfully unionize at both Starbucks and Amazon, both among the senator’s favorite punching bags. Sanders has been a prominent ally of both efforts from the senate, and we’ve already seen how his 2016 campaign had a catalyzing effect on the teachers strike wave that came later. If they overlap in 2024, his campaign would both benefit from this rising militancy — bringing an added urgency to his candidacy while potentially filling out the grassroots organizing operation that we only saw a taste of in 2020 — and, more importantly, feed into it, politicizing workers across the country and raising up otherwise-ignored labor battles to national prominence.
A third run would also come in the middle of an ongoing crisis of American democracy. Coming from a family that was nearly wiped out in the Holocaust, Sanders was alarmed at the prospect of another Trump win in 2020. But that prospect will be on the table again in 2024, with an even more radical Republican Party in tow and with little standing in its way. Though the senator would never say it publicly, he must know that, as Biden’s own team privately admitted, the president only defeated Trump narrowly in 2020 thanks to factors outside of his control.
Yet if Biden sits out 2024, the only thing standing between the country and another four years of Trumpist authoritarianism are a host of candidates who lack even the plain-spoken appeal of Scranton Joe, who in any case has presided over the Democratic Party’s ongoing erosion of working-class support. It would mean most likely relying on the exact kind of corrupt, business-as-usual Democratic politics that already failed to stop Trump once in 2016. And it would mean hoping against hope that, without Sanders on the ballot, the Democratic Party will embrace the kind of grassroots organizing it has rejected since Barack Obama’s two campaigns, with disastrous results. And all of it will have to succeed, this time, without a bumbling, crisis-plagued incumbent to run against.
Beating Trump again won’t be easy, and it’s not remotely guaranteed. But without another set of 2020-style world-historical crises, it’s hard to see anyone but Sanders staving off his victory in two years’ time, let alone pursuing the transformational political project needed to save the country afterward.
Warren, the most likely candidate to do the second part, is a “wine-track” candidate whose base of support is in the same kinds of affluent, highly educated areas that were a political dead end for Democrats in 2016 — and where she’s underperformed the party in her own home state. By contrast, Sanders forged his political career in rural and traditionally GOP-voting Vermont, where he’s consistently outperformed Democrats and won big in conservative areas with lower levels of education and income.
Sanders would likely still struggle in these areas against any Republican in a head-to-head matchup. But just as Trump may have a unique ability to peel off unexpected parts of the Democratic base — for example, a surprisingly large portion of mostly anti-Trump black Americans agreed in 2020 that “I do not always like President Trump’s policies, but I like the way he shows strength and defies the establishment” — it well may be only Sanders who can peel off enough rural Trump voters to make a difference.
If Sanders announces, the haters will come out of the woodwork. “He’s too old!” they’ll yell, about the preternaturally fit and energetic senator who works at an unceasing pace that staffers a fraction of his age can’t keep up with. This man just pitched a strike on a regulation-size minor league baseball field on his first try, for Christ’s sake.
“The Democrats mustn’t nominate another white man!” they’ll say, ignoring that Sanders would be the country’s first Jewish president, a fact of great symbolic importance in a time of rising neofascism that’s seen synagogues targeted with violence. In a country where only one Jew each has ever served as the GOP nominee and a Democratic running mate, and only one — Sanders himself — has ever won a presidential state primary, his nomination would be no minor milestone.
“He’s already lost twice!” they’ll shout. Yes, and so what? It took Ronald Reagan three tries to win the Republican nomination, and that third time, he too was plagued by doubts about his age. Yet he won the nomination and served two terms as a transformational president, shifting culture and the elite political consensus away from the New Deal era and into the neoliberal one.
Sanders has the potential to be that same kind of transformational leader, only in the opposite political direction, reversing the Reagan-led drift toward greed and working class immiseration. Anyone the least bit familiar with his years as Burlington mayor should know the kind of things Sanders can do with even a weak executive office, a bully pulpit, and a movement of people behind him. A Sanders presidency would be an uphill battle, but it would at least be a battle.
As the senator himself has acknowledged, the past year and a half has shown the limits of today’s corporate-captured Democratic politics, and its attempts to accommodate and balance the interests of the powerful few against the needs of the many. The United States today is an arena of asymmetric class war, where those at the top pour their bottomless wealth into pitiless campaigns to seize whatever they want and however much they want of it, and their nominal opposition simply asks them nicely to give a little bit back, which they of course refuse.
If Sanders runs, the worst outcome is one more unsuccessful but inspiring campaign that shakes up the country. And the best outcome? Well, maybe just for once, the working class might actually start winning that class war.
I think twice was enough for Bernie. He never could go for the jugular. But one can always hope for a better candidate.
It would depend on how bad things get that may make up his mind to run or not. Either way its a long way off politically and to much can and will happen. The only certainly is the Blue-Red blame game will roll on.
I know I’ve said it before, but I hope he doesn’t run again. He’s in his early 80s. The Bernster has proven that there are still honest people here who want to serve as true public servants. Bernie loves his family and needs to spend what time is left to him with them.
I love how the people dismissing Matthew McConaughey as a “celebrity” fawn over the man who presided over Celebrity Apprentice and hail Ted Nugent as, well, a celebrity.
Sonny Alaniz was headed home after midnight when his ATV lurched to a stop on a rural Texas road, the gas tank undeniably drained.
The nursing student and his seven passengers, who had been out celebrating his 22nd birthday that last Saturday in May, had little choice but to hop out and push. They slogged three miles before someone arrived with fuel, only to find the four-wheeler still wouldn’t start and had to be towed. “Next time, I’ll just stay home,” he joked.
It’s a familiar predicament, especially as the incessant run-up in prices has motorists testing the limits of their fuel gauges: AAA fielded 50,787 out-of-gas calls in April, a 32 percent jump from the same month last year. More than 200,000 drivers have been similarly stranded this year, the automobile club said. And gas prices have risen precipitously since April, making the financial pain even more acute.
Fuel prices began their most recent surge after Russia invaded Ukraine in February, upsetting energy markets. The U.S. average for a gallon of gas has swelled 62 percent, to $4.96, since last year, AAA data shows. Motorists in 16 states are paying at least $5 a gallon on average, while California has breached $6. Filling up a tank of gas, depending on the vehicle, can cost more than $100, which is the equivalent of 14 hours of after-tax income for certain low-wage workers.
The escalating expense, combined with the rising costs of food, housing and other essentials, has consumers playing inflationary whack-a-mole, making tougher choices on how much they can spend and when. Some drivers may do a partial fill-up if they’re pressed for cash at the end of a pay cycle, says Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy.
“If you only have five or 10 bucks left before your next paycheck, that’s what you’re going on,” De Haan said. “This tells us people are really hurting from high gas prices.”
A Washington Post-Schar School poll bears that out: 44 percent of drivers randomly contacted between April 21 and May 12 said they have only partially filled their car’s gas tank, a figure that rises to 61 percent for drivers with incomes below $50,000.
And more than 6 in 10 drivers have made the decision to drive less — making fewer trips to the grocery store, for example — while more than 3 in 10 said they are driving at reduced speeds, which can improve gas mileage.
Gasoline demand, measured as a four-week moving average, dropped to 8.8 million barrels a day for the week ended May 20, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. If you exclude 2020, that’s the lowest level for that time of year since 2013.
Alina Hille, 35, is used to cutting it close between fill-ups but had never actually run out until a recent Monday afternoon, sidelined on a St. Louis street with her son, 4, and daughter, 7, in tow. The three trudged to the nearest fuel station, where the loaner gas can was out with another customer. So Hille, who works as a therapist for a nonprofit, purchased a one-gallon canister for $1.50, filled it up and managed to get home in time to jump on a Zoom call.
She has found ways to pare back — she works from home more often and is more likely to walk her kids to school — but the financial challenge is profound: As of Wednesday, a full tank of gas would run her $67 ― $9 more than a month ago.
“I find myself not doing things I used to with the kids because of the gas prices,” Hille said. “We used to go for drives when they are restless or try to drive to playgrounds, or destinations they haven’t been to before.”
The price hikes also have given rise to bizarre instances of fuel theft. A San Diego couple called police after they found a hole drilled in the bottom of a car, emitting a steady stream of gas, according a March 21 report from CBS8. Similar incidents have been reported in Memphis, Las Vegas and other cities.
Three Florida men were arrested and face racketeering charges on accusations of stealing thousands of gallons of diesel directly from gas stations, transporting it in 300-gallon “gasoline bladders” and reselling it, according to Newsweek.
Not exactly political but considering thier track record with unions.
The Denver Broncos and the Walton-Penner family have entered into a purchase and sale agreement to acquire the NFL team, it was announced on Tuesday.
The agreement to purchase the Broncos from the Pat Bowlen Trust is subject to approval from the NFL’s finance committee and league ownership, as well as “the satisfaction of customary closing procedures,” according to a statement from the Broncos. The purchasing group is headed by Walmart heir Rob Walton, his daughter Carrie Walton Penner, and her husband Greg Penner, the chairman of Walmart. “I have enjoyed getting to know Rob Walton, Carrie Walton Penner and Greg Penner throughout this process,” said Broncos president and CEO Joe Ellis.
Look out Bronco employees as the new owners may use the same wage and benefits that they do at their stores. I hope that they dont use their new cashier policy (lack of) for enterence into the stadium, imagine the lines :). The players are safe as their players union has the clout to stand to them and the other owners.
As long as the NFL remains a popular/$$$$ sports entertainment source, this stuff will continue. The fans want to own a team? Nope, that is communism/socialism. Really? The Green Bay Packers are owned by their fans. Look up their history. They have won quite a few championships over the decades. 🙂
No new franchise in the major sports are allowed to copy the GB model. BTW the Broncos sold for $4.65 billion, Meanwhile Palpatine( its what i call Jones now used to be Al Davis as thier age showed) said he’d start the bidding at 10 billion should he decide to sell the Cowboys
The House legislation — which passed 223-204 — raises the age for purchasing semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21, bans high-capacity magazines, requires a background check for buying a “ghost gun” and includes safe storage requirements for firearms.
House GOP leadership leaned on their members to vote against the bill on final passage, saying in a notice to Republican offices that Democrats had “thrown together this reactionary package … that egregiously violates law-abiding citizens’ 2nd Amendment rights” and had “made little to no effort to engage Republicans.”
In the end five House Republicans voted for the bill: Chris Jacobs (N.Y.), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Fred Upton (R-Mich.), Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.). Only one of those Republicans, Fitzpatrick, is on the ballot in November.
Two Democrats voted against the bill: Jared Golden (Maine) and Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.).
To try to build pressure on Republicans, and mollify moderate House Democrats, the House voted on each piece of the bill in addition to a final vote on the full bill.
I just passed a resolution condemning the Great Replacement Theory for the first time in history. The resolution passed 218-205 in the House. I received widespread support from the Democratic caucus… 🧵
— Congressman Jamaal Bowman (@RepBowman) June 8, 2022
wpDiscuz
Recall elections are being turned into a tool by the right because they are easier to win than a regular election
In better election news, Katie Porter is leading with 51% of the vote over her Republican primary challengers, which indicates that she is in the driver’s seat for the general election. Karen Bass has advanced to the general election in LA against billionaire conservative Dem Rick Caruso who spent millions of his money on the election, outspending Bass 25-1. Right now it’s Caruso leading 42-37 but there’s tons more votes to count in a mail in state.
Abby Finkhauser lost by 10 points in her primary for senator in Iowa.
No surprise on Porter. 🙂
Yeah they’re a “News” station. What a joke.
We all know FN is mainly propaganda, thus, I’m not surprised they are concerned with ratings. This probably would not bode well for the network. Not defending them, but I also think the hearings will do zero for the Dems when it comes to the midterms. FN is also taking that bet. Benghazi helped the GOP, despite Clinton’s strong testimony in the many hearings.
Big deal, it a muslim or anyone else for that matter doent want that phrase on a gun a Dremel tool will erase all of that with a little grinding and paint. Why do they have war and peace on it as most of these nut jobs dont want peace as thier penile extension would have no use then.
What if all those repeated shots are about securing the peace? I’m more than a bit confused by this, and I’m not caught up in all that. Religion claims to be all about peace, while it often resorts to war. Maybe some need the rationalization to start totin’ arms for Jesus.
If you ask me it’s all about the crazy playing off the crazy.
the Crusades nothing but religion and war
T and R x 2, jcb!! 🙂 That is a shame about Boudin and San Francisco.
https://theintercept.com/2022/06/08/opportunity-for-all-action-fund-dark-money-democratic-primary/
I would bet zero,0, zilch
Bernie Sanders Should Run for President a Third Time
Part 2
I think twice was enough for Bernie. He never could go for the jugular. But one can always hope for a better candidate.
It would depend on how bad things get that may make up his mind to run or not. Either way its a long way off politically and to much can and will happen. The only certainly is the Blue-Red blame game will roll on.
I know I’ve said it before, but I hope he doesn’t run again. He’s in his early 80s. The Bernster has proven that there are still honest people here who want to serve as true public servants. Bernie loves his family and needs to spend what time is left to him with them.
Cant argue that!!!
But, but all stimulus money Americans supposedly hoarded–how is this posssible
TY! That was my point!
This state is sitting on/stealing a lot of it.
Surging gas prices leave drivers stranded
Not exactly political but considering thier track record with unions.
The Denver Broncos and the Walton-Penner family have entered into a purchase and sale agreement to acquire the NFL team, it was announced on Tuesday.
The agreement to purchase the Broncos from the Pat Bowlen Trust is subject to approval from the NFL’s finance committee and league ownership, as well as “the satisfaction of customary closing procedures,” according to a statement from the Broncos.
The purchasing group is headed by Walmart heir Rob Walton, his daughter Carrie Walton Penner, and her husband Greg Penner, the chairman of Walmart.
“I have enjoyed getting to know Rob Walton, Carrie Walton Penner and Greg Penner throughout this process,” said Broncos president and CEO Joe Ellis.
Look out Bronco employees as the new owners may use the same wage and benefits that they do at their stores. I hope that they dont use their new cashier policy (lack of) for enterence into the stadium, imagine the lines :). The players are safe as their players union has the clout to stand to them and the other owners.
As long as the NFL remains a popular/$$$$ sports entertainment source, this stuff will continue. The fans want to own a team? Nope, that is communism/socialism. Really? The Green Bay Packers are owned by their fans. Look up their history. They have won quite a few championships over the decades. 🙂
No new franchise in the major sports are allowed to copy the GB model. BTW the Broncos sold for $4.65 billion, Meanwhile Palpatine( its what i call Jones now used to be Al Davis as thier age showed) said he’d start the bidding at 10 billion should he decide to sell the Cowboys
Looks like some R’s voted for it.
Final vote on House bill:
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/08/house-democrats-gun-reform-goals-00038111
This fruitcake country had an assault weapons ban. It expired during Cheney-Dumya’s reign (of terror). Why can’t that be reinstated?