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A New Kind of Political Ad: ‘Honest Stories Work’

Instead of relying on polling to create “extremely message-heavy” ads, McLaughlin and Hyers prefer to let their subjects talk freely about what matters to them.

“They communicate with people instead of speaking at people,” McLaughlin said of his videos. “Honest stories work.”

While the team has created content for New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, it was their video for Democrat Randy Bryce that caught the public’s attention, with more than half a million views on YouTube alone so far.

The video brought national recognition to the unknown steelworker in his quest to unseat House Speaker Paul D. Ryan in Wisconsin’s 1st District. Bryce, who came to be known as the “Iron ’Stache” on Twitter for his definitive facial hair, raised more than $430,000 in 12 days after the video’s release.

Now, McLaughlin and Hyers are back with another video that has the same potential.

An introduction video the two produced for Boyd Melson, a Democratic candidate in New York’s 11th District, racked up 100,000 views in under an hour, according to the campaign. The video is similar to McLaughlin’s previous work with emotional music and dramatic shots.

Bernie Sanders to speak in Indianapolis

Former presidential candidate and current senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, will speak at a rally on jobs and the economy at 4 p.m. Monday in Indianapolis, according to an email sent out by the political action organization Our Revolution.

The event is sponsored by Good Jobs Nation, an organization which advocates for higher wages and better opportunities for federal contract workers, according to the organization’s website. The rally will be at Monument Circle in downtown Indianapolis.

Sanders visited IU-Bloomington on April 27, 2016 and spoke at the IU Auditorium less than a week before he won the Indiana Democratic primary. In July of the same year, he conceded the Democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton, who went on to lose the general election to President Donald Trump.

Thousands lined up for Sanders’ speech on the Bloomington campus, and many never got into the auditorium. He ended up speaking briefly outside the building before delivering his full speech inside.

#2020Vision: Bernie Sanders counter-programs Trump’s road trip; Booker takes on Confederate statues

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is set to hit the road on a three-city Midwestern tour designed to show that his progressive policies have universal appeal.

Sanders will be in Indianapolis on Monday for an event with union leader (and Trump Twitter target) Chuck Jones. Then he’ll head to Portsmouth, Ohio — in a county Trump won by 37 points and which has been ravaged by the opioid crisis —and then Detroit, for an event with Rep. John Conyers.

What do Sanders and Conyers have in common? Single-payer “Medicare for all” health care, of course. Conyers sponsored the major House Democratic proposal. Sanders is soon expected to introduce his own version in the Senate.

If all goes according to plan, the trip could help Sanders show that “Medicare for all” sells in the Rust Belt — and it could also be a flattering contrast, one populist against another, as President Donald Trump heads West.

An additional Bernie-world note: Some of Sanders’ most vocal allies had tweaked a Democratic rising star, California Sen. Kamala Harris, on policy recently. That agitated some within the party. But McClatchy’s Alex Roarty included an important quote in a story this week, in which Sanders’ inner circle distanced the Vermont independent senator from those allies’ criticisms of Harris.

“Nobody part of Bernie’s inner circle had anything to do with that, or would have any part of the criticism of Sen. Harris,” said Mark Longabaugh, a senior aide to Sanders’ presidential campaign.

‘He’s Not Slowing Down’: Sanders to Rip Trump, Push for Single Payer on Midwest Tour

As new polling data shows President Donald Trump’s support flagging in several electorally crucial Midwest states, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is gearing up for his three-state Midwest “Pickup Tour,” which will aim to demonstrate that his ambitious progressive agenda—which includes a $15 federal minimum wage, Medicare for All, and tuition-free public college—has “universal appeal.”

The tour is scheduled to begin on Monday in Indianapolis, Indiana, where Sanders will join former United Steelworkers Local 1999 President Chuck Jones at a rally focused primarily on jobs and income inequality.

“Elected officials and local activists will draw attention to the fact that Trump has failed to deliver on his promises to put workers first and stop the offshoring of American jobs,” Indiana Talks noted in its summary of the tour’s objectives.

Jones made headlines in December when he accused Trump of lying to Carrier workers about the number of jobs the company planned to keep in the country. Trump attacked Jones on Twitter, and Jones hit back with an op-ed in the Washington Post, accusing Trump of selling workers “a false hope.”

On Monday, Jones plans to deliver a similar message.

Even in red states, liberal candidates are climbing into power in the nation’s cities

Randall Woodfin is not going to talk about “change.” The 36-year old Democrat, a candidate for mayor of Birmingham, is running to unseat a two-term incumbent — and he is selling a vision of how his city, which had lost one-third of its population since the 1960s, could be economically transformed.

It just feels dangerous to boil that down to “change.”

“That word will trip you up,” said Woodfin, sitting in a campaign office covered in maps and volunteer walk lists. “This is not about that. Change for change’s sake is what got us Trump. This is about progress for everybody.”

Woodfin, a soft-spoken attorney and former school board member, has spent a whole year on his bid for mayor. In that time, Democrats have been locked out of national power, further diminished in state legislatures and wiped out in rural America. That has left the increasingly blue cities and suburbs as the obvious places for Democrats to attempt to rebuild.

In May, Philadelphia’s progressives helped civil rights attorney Larry Klasner win the Democratic primary for district attorney; if he wins a full term this November, the city’s top legal job will be held by a lawyer who defended members of Black Lives Matter and will refuse to seek the death penalty. In Jackson, Miss., progressive-backed candidate Chokwe Antar Lumumba won the mayor’s office, promising to make Mississippi’s capital “the most radical city on the planet.”

Group protests outside Paul Ryan’s church calling for him to protect immigrant program

Members of an immigrant youth advocacy group and others protested peacefully outside Rep. Paul Ryan’s Janesville church Sunday morning calling for Ryan to defend the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigrant program.

The program allows some illegal immigrants who came to the United States as minors to earn a work permit and defer potential deportation.

“For many of us, that gave us hope,” said Cendi Trujillo. “That told us and personally me that working so hard is worth it. And going to college is going to be worth it because you’re going to be able to put your degree to use.”

Trujillo of Milwaukee is a member of Voces de la Frontera and a group within Voces called Youth Empowered in the Struggle. Voces, a group that advocates for immigrant and worker rights, helped organize Sunday’s protest at St. John Vianney Catholic Church.

This summer, a coalition of officials from 10 states threatened to sue to eliminate DACA if President Donald Trump does not end the program by Sept. 5, according to a Voces news release. The program allows close to 800,000 immigrant youth to work legally and remain with their families.

Trujillo said there are often protests outside Ryan’s offices and “we are tired of going to an empty office.”

So she said they decided to protest at the church. Trujillo said the protest was not in any way an attack on the church. She said they met a few days ago with the priest, gave advance notice and shared their stories.

I demand equal airtime for Cathy Myers too. Why shut the woman in the race up.

Liberals Demand CNN Airtime for Ryan Opponent

Liberals are demanding CNN give equal airtime to Paul Ryan’s 2018 opponent during the House speaker’s network town hall.

On Monday, Ryan will appear at a town hall hosted by CNN host Jake Tapper in his native Racine, Wis. Ryan, who was the 2012 Republican vice presidential candidate and has served as speaker of the House since 2015, is expected to address constituent questions on “federal budget, tax reform, infrastructure, and President Donald Trump,” according to a CNN release.

The event has rankled liberal activist groups. The Working Families Party, Democracy for America and NARAL Pro-Choice America are circulating a petition demanding that the network offer an equal platform to Ryan’s opponent in 2018, iron worker union official Randy Bryce.

“We think Paul Ryan shouldn’t get a huge national stage all to himself in the heat of a critical campaign. So we’re calling on CNN to turn this one-sided event into a real debate by letting Randy take the stage,” the petition says.

Marina Dimitrijevic, director of the Wisconsin Working Families Party, said that Ryan, who was first elected in 1998, faces “the race of his life” from Bryce, who is “building up enormous momentum in the district.” She said the CNN interview gives Ryan an unfair advantage.

Cathy Myers Criticizes Speaker Ryan for Refusal to Host Public Town Hall and Randy Bryce for Refusing to Attend Primary Candidate Forum

Democratic Congressional Candidate Cathy Myers, who is seeking to represent Wisconsin’s First Congressional District, criticized her opponents, Paul Ryan and Randy Bryce, for ignoring local issues and refusing to attend public forums.

“The real concerns of our neighbors deserve real discussion, so I am calling on Speaker Ryan and Randy Bryce to take a break from the national press circuit and come back home to discuss local issues,” Myers said.

Paul Ryan has not hosted a town hall meeting in his district for nearly two years, but is participating in an invite-only town hall hosted by Jake Tapper on Monday, August 21st.

“Speaker Ryan is afraid of being held accountable for his policies, and I would be too if I tried to rip health insurance away from 48,900 of my neighbors,” Myers continued.

‘We are begging for housing’: the crisis in Indigenous communities

Overcrowded homes are at the root of Indigenous disadvantage, and communities are crying out for culturally appropriate dwellings

Anchorage Musuem highlights northern indigenous hip-hop

There’s a northern hip-hop party going on at the Anchorage Museum, and it won’t stop until the end of the month.

The “We Up” exhibit showcases video of indigenous northern hip-hop artists in three adjoining rooms on the first floor.

In the first room, Ailu Valle raps in the Sami language in a Finnish forest. In the next, Athabascan rapper Samuel Johns delivers rapid-fire rhymes in sunglasses and headphones about issues facing his people. And in the third, dancer Brianna (McMillen) Pritchard, who has Tlingit heritage and dances by the name Bgirl Snap One, spins and flips.

Each room has a bench where viewers can sit and chill while taking in the sights and sounds.

The videos are part of the raw footage of an upcoming documentary about indigenous northern hip-hop artists by Anchorage Museum Curator of Public Engagement David Holthouse. He said he plans to complete the documentary in a year or so. Graffiti artists, dancers and DJs, some of whom graft tribal music and moves onto their work, are also highlighted in Holthouse’s project.

“This music-based subculture that started in the south Bronx is now being reinterpreted by these Native people from rural Alaska” and other northern regions, Holthouse said. “They’re rapping about a very close emotional and spiritual connection to their place. They’re referencing rivers and trails and forests instead of subway lines” and urban neighborhoods.

Indigenous music rumbles Falls

Across both sides of the river, drums played back and forth during the opening ceremony of Rumble at the Falls on Saturday night at Oakes Garden Theatre in Niagara Falls.

Though they were tough to hear at some parts from the other side, during the swells of traditional Indigenous drums and singing, the message was clear across the Niagara River — Indigenous people are still here and still rocking today.

Following the kickoff, the music was loud and spirits high as the sounds of rock and blues filled the air of Clifton Hill, featuring Indigenous musicians including two-time Juno Award winner Derek Miller.

Miller played songs by Indigenous music icons such as Charley Patton, Mildred Bailey, Peter Lafarge, Link Wray, Jimi Hendrix, Jesse Ed Davis, Buffy Sainte-Marie and The Band’s Robbie Robertson, highlighting Indigenous contributions to the roots of blues, jazz, folk, and rock music.

Musical performances alternated between the showing of clips from the new documentary Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World, which tells the until now absent story of Indigenous musicians and how they shaped the history of popular music, both in North America and across the globe.

Tim Johnson, artistic producer of Celebration of Nations and producer of Rumble at the Falls, said the event indicates the continuity of Indigenous peoples and the amount of influence Indigenous artists have had around the world.

“It’s pretty profound,” said Johnson. “It sends out a very clear message that Indigenous peoples are still here and are still making significant contributions to society.”

How art and spirituality are defining the ‘water protectors’

Women have been on the frontline of much of the land and water-related Indigenous activism that we see in Canada today. In the fight for clean water, this style of activism has seen art and spirituality go hand in hand.

For many, these actions have nothing to do with activism, but rather, protecting a way of life for future generations.

For four days in July, nearly 100 Indigenous and non-Indigenous people came together to camp and pray for water at the Great Water Gathering in Manitoba’s Whiteshell region. The gathering was organized by Belcourt, and a group of Anishinaabe elders in Manitoba.

“The idea is to come together to pray for the waters, but also to pray for future generations of not just our children, but of all babies that are going to be born in the future,” said Christi Belcourt.

Belcourt is a Métis visual artist from Manito-Sakahigan (Lac Ste. Anne, Alta.), whose artwork has been displayed in art galleries, used by Italian fashion designers Valentino, and displayed on protest banners across North America.

“It’s more important than ever that people come together and pray for the waters and make offerings for the waters,” said Belcourt.

Trump ‘Wave of Destruction’ Continues With Decision to Disband Key Climate Panel

Even as reports from federal agencies demonstrate that the global climate scenario is becoming increasingly alarming, President Donald Trump has decided to continue the “wave of destruction” his administration is inflicting on the environment—and on the agencies tasked with studying climate change—by disbanding the federal advisory panel for the National Climate Assessment, which was tasked with helping government translate climate findings into plans for action.

As the Washington Post reported, the “charter for the 15-person Advisory Committee for the Sustained National Climate Assessment—which includes academics as well as local officials and corporate representatives—expires Sunday,” and the Trump administration has decided the panel will not be renewed.

Centrist Dems push back on Warren

Moderate Democrats are pushing back at Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) view that progressives have taken control of the party.

“We can’t win the House back with progressives running in swing states,” said former Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), a surrogate for 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton who is leading the Fight Back California super PAC aimed at winning back seven House seats in the Golden State.

Interviews with Democratic strategists, donors and organizers from across the country reveal deep disagreement with Warren’s premise that progressives make up the “heart and soul” of the Democratic Party.

RNC raises millions more than DNC in July

The Republican National Committee (RNC) expanded its massive fundraising lead over the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in July as the Democrats posted their worst July haul in a decade.

The DNC raised just $3.8 million in July, compared to the $10.2 million raised by the RNC in the same month. While the GOP has no debt, the DNC added slightly to its debt in July, which now sits at $3.4 million.

The Democrats haven’t raised that little money in a July since 2007, when the party raised $3.4 million.

USS John S McCain: 10 US sailors missing after destroyer collides with oil tanker

A rescue mission is underway off Singapore in an incident which follows the fatal collision between USS Fitzgerald and merchant ship in June

How Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump have restarted the war on drugs

Under Obama, America’s addiction to mass incarceration seemed to fade. But then came Trump and a hardline attorney general

It did?

Arizona’s ‘concentration camp’: why was Tent City kept open for 24 years?

In 1993 Joe Arpaio, America’s ‘toughest sheriff’, opened a temporary outdoor jail in Phoenix. After more than two decades, the notorious project is finally closing

Trump’s day of doom for national monuments approaches

Created by Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, the Cascade-Siskiyou monument protects Oregon’s extraordinary biodiversity, from butterflies to trout. But a Trump review threatens to open the landscape to the timber industry

Farm group opposes all three Keystone XL routes

TransCanada is proposing three routes through Nebraska for its $8-billion Keystone XL oil pipeline and the president of the Nebraska Farmers Union says his organization opposes all three.

John Hansen says the routes are all through environmentally-fragile areas and an oil leak could quickly bring disaster.

“Between 30 and 40% of the routes all go diagonally, right through very sandy soils,” Hansen says. “These soils are porous, they don’t hold water very well. Moisture moves through them very quickly. They’re prone to wind erosion. They’re prone to leaching.”

The Nebraska Public Service Commission held four days of hearings on the routes earlier this month. Hansen says the state doesn’t have a way to handle choosing a proper route.

“All three of these routes are all shortcuts based on TransCanada going back to the start and trying to take advantage of the state of Nebraska,” Hansen says, “because we had failed as a state to put in place an oil pipeline siting and routing process.”

Right of Way

Photos: Pennsylvania Residents in Path of Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline Brace for Fight Over Construction

If you know where to look, you can spot them along the roadsides as you drive through the hilly farmland of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Short wooden stakes stand exactly 50 feet apart, topped with orange tape. The markers seem benign, but for many Lancaster residents, the threat they represent is anything but: These poles mark the proposed path of the Atlantic Sunrise natural gas pipeline.

The Atlantic Sunrise project is a $3 billion expansion of natural gas giant Williams’s Transco pipeline network. Building it will require burying a 42-inch pipe under miles of Amish country, below farms and rivers, in the face of opposition from many Lancaster residents.

Many of the pipeline’s opponents are already in open rebellion. A group of nuns who own land on the proposed pipeline’s path refused to grant Williams an easement on their property. Williams threatened to use eminent domain, and now the nuns from the Adorers of the Blood of Christ have sued the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in U.S. District Court. They argue the pipeline’s construction contradicts their deeply held religious beliefs and that using eminent domain to take their land is a violation of their First Amendment rights to freedom of religion.

Pipeline prospect leaves residents of karst-laden Mt. Tabor Road with a sinking feeling

Neighbors Bob and Donna Jones and Tom and Bonnie Triplett share two strong feelings that sometimes dog their waking hours and bedevil their sleep: bewilderment and dread.

Bewilderment because the couples, whose properties abut along Mt. Tabor Road in Montgomery County, struggle to understand why Mountain Valley Pipeline would choose to bury its 42-inch diameter natural gas pipeline through a neighborhood rife with sinkholes, sinking streams, caves and other features of karst terrain.

Dread because the neighbors anticipate that the pipeline would steal both the magic and the value of the rural properties they have grown to know intimately over the course of more than three decades.

Another distinguishing quality the couples seem to share: determination. They have been resolved to either help stop the project altogether or persuade regulators that routing the pipeline through the Mt. Tabor Road neighborhood is ill-advised

Va. delegate among pipeline opponents

Delegate Joesph Yost, R-Giles County, is not happy about a proposed natural gas pipeline that would run through Giles County and cut the historic town of Newport “in half.”

Yost was one of more than a dozen speakers who took the stage at an anti-pipeline rally Saturday at the Pearisburg Recreation Center organized by Hands Across the Appalachian Trail.

“I have always been opposed to it,” he said of the pipeline. “I was born and raised in Giles County and I want my 14-month-old daughter to enjoy the beauty of the mountains.”

That beauty as well as the Appalachian Trail and underground water sources are some of the reasons Yost and others are being vocal about the proposed project, which could receive the required federal approval this year.

Pressure mounts on officials weighing pipeline projects

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Pressure is mounting on Virginia officials to slow or reconsider the water quality certifications they intend to issue for a pair of natural gas pipeline projects.

The Richmond Times Dispatch reports that hundreds attended public hearings this month to express concerns with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and state Water Control Board.

An environmental law group is contending that Dominion Energy’s proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline won’t save money as the company claims. Instead, the group says it could cost Virginia customers more than $2 billion in unnecessary costs.

Atlantic Coast Pipeline opponents give regulators an earful

Attendees were unanimous in their opposition to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline at a listening session hosted by the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality last week in Rocky Mount.

Each of the 21 people who stepped forward to speak Tuesday evening urged officials not to approve state permits for the project to transport natural gas through 186 miles of 36-inch high-power transmission pipeline in eight North Carolina counties.

The $5.5 billion project, which would transport fracked gas 600 miles from West Virginia through Virginia to North Carolina, is proposed by Dominion Resources and Duke Energy. Some 12 miles of the route runs across the western parts of Wilson County.

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S.A. Glover of Wilson, owner of a family farm in Wilson County, urged officials to terminate all further development of the ACP.

“The proposed pipeline poses an unnecessary and intolerable risk to farms, families and communities in and around its proposed path,” Glover said in prepared remarks.

Democrats long for Obama’s return

oh lord no…

well then again if Harris and Booker are scared of being in his shadow… maybe its worth it.