The Progressive Wing

Tip jar…for kindness and fairness.

Today we remember the nearly 3,000 lives lost on 9/11 and the brave people who risked their lives to help that day. Those selfless acts of sacrifice show the very best of us as a nation, and we can honor that sacrifice by working to build a world of security and dignity for all.
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) September 11, 2020

Thanks Benny! JD and I will be on a mini road trip to our spot in NM/CO over the weekend. The RV fixerupper has hit a bit of a lull as weather/schedule conflict with one another but we hoping to have a productive week after our ‘rest’. Funny thing about living in the city is it is near impossible to find anyone with electrical/carpentry/mechanical knowledge without being a corporation covered by COIs etc, and the majority of the modern yellowpages is so cluttered with spam and fraud its easy to get discouraged. Youtube is still a blessing (despite the ad increase of late)

Fly high birdies!

la58

Having worked on a boat, which is like a RV. If you have? about electrical, let me know.

wi62

Have a great trip, don’t get discouraged on the RV project

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/09/11/sanders-slams-republican-senate-happily-approving-740-billion-pentagon-while-doing

In a speech on the Senate floor Thursday following the defeat of the GOP’s latest coronavirus stimulus package, Sen. Bernie Sanders slammed the chamber’s Republicans for offering “totally inadequate” relief for jobless, hungry, and eviction-prone Americans after happily approving massive tax cuts for the wealthy and a $740 billion budget for the Pentagon.
“The Senate Republican bill provides nothing for rent, nothing for mortgages, nothing for food, nothing for hazard pay, nothing for healthcare, nothing for public transportation, and nothing to prevent the mass layoffs of teachers, nurses, firefighters, and construction workers that will take place as cities and states struggle economically,” said the Vermont senator, who joined the united Democratic caucus in voting down the legislation.
Sanders noted that the GOP bill—which does not include any additional aid for state and local governments—would not prevent teachers and other public employees from losing their jobs due to steep budget cuts that are already having a destructive impact across the nation. As of August, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “about 1.1 million public-sector workers had lost their jobs since February, an estimated 668,000 (59 percent) of them in education.”
“The same Republicans who had no problem voting for a trillion-dollar tax break for the top one percent and large corporations two years ago are now telling 40 million Americans who are struggling to pay for housing that we cannot afford to help them pay their rent or mortgage,” Sanders continued. “The same Republicans who just voted to provide $740 billion for the Pentagon and the military-industrial complex to wage endless wars are now telling 30 million workers who lost their jobs that we cannot afford to continue the $600-a-week supplement they were receiving in unemployment benefits.”

This election is the most important election, not in my lifetime, but in the modern history of this country. We need to get rid of Donald Trump and rally working people together. pic.twitter.com/M2LziH379o
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) September 11, 2020

"Everything is on the line here. I don’t think our democracy can take four more years of what we’ve had for the last four years." –@johnfetterman pic.twitter.com/avqnDCNUUB
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) September 11, 2020

“In 2016 Trump won [Pennsylvania] by 44,000 votes… We—Latinx folks, Black folks, people of color—can substantially change the overall direction of this election.” –@maeganllerena pic.twitter.com/JeRrEmt1ad
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) September 11, 2020

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/09/11/its-superspreader-event-few-masks-sight-packed-trump-campaign-rally-michigan

“This is the crap that makes grown epidemiologists cry,” epidemiologist Eric Feigl-Ding, a fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, said in response to photos emerging from the campaign event, which was held at a Freeland aircraft hangar. According to state health officials, more than 120,000 Michiganders have contracted Covid-19 and at least 6,900 have died.
Several rally attendees expressed complete indifference about the threat the event posed to their own health and that of others, with one Trump supporter telling CNN’s Jim Acosta, “There’s no Covid.”
“It’s a fake pandemic created to destroy the United States of America,” the man said.
Another supporter of the president told Acosta that he is “not afraid” of the virus because “the good lord takes care of me.”
“If I die, I die,” the man added. “We gotta get this country moving.”
Veteran Michigan reporter and New York Times correspondent Kathy Gray said Trump campaign officials tracked her down and escorted her out of the event after she tweeted pictures of rallygoers without face coverings. Gray estimated that “maybe 10%” of the thousands of attendees were wearing face coverings.
“I’ve just been kicked out of the Trump rally,” wrote Gray.

As the Detroit Free Press reported, the dangerously crowded Trump rally was “in stark contrast” to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s visit to the state on Wednesday.
“That speech was closed to the public,” the Free Press reported, “with media and a handful of attendees asked to remain in chairs spaced throughout a parking lot.”

Dear Michigan contact-tracers: https://t.co/u0FOw7iEv9
— Abdul El-Sayed (@AbdulElSayed) September 11, 2020

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-michigan-rally-plays-fortunate-son-song-avoiding-vietnam-war-2020-9?utm_source=reddit.com

President Donald Trump’s campaign played a song about rich people dodging the Vietnam War draft — which Trump did five times — as the president disembarked his plane for a rally in Michigan.
The 1969 song “Fortunate Son,” by Creedence Clearwater Revival, blared as Air Force One arrived to crowds of Trump supporters at MBS International Airport in Freeland, Michigan, on Thursday.
The song is sung from the perspective of young men drafted to fight in the Vietnam War who didn’t have the powerful connections to avoid going.
As the lyrics say: “Some folks are born silver spoon in hand / Lord, don’t they help themselves, no … It ain’t me, it ain’t me / I ain’t no millionaire’s son.”
Trump received military draft deferments five times in the 1960s and 1970s, according to Snopes: four times for college, and once for having bone spurs, which are protrusions of calcium on the heel bone and qualified him for a medical exemption.
In December 2018, The New York Times reported that a foot doctor may have falsely diagnosed Trump with bone spurs to avoid the Vietnam War as a favor to Trump’s father and the doctor’s landlord, Fred Trump.

“Fortunate Son” plays as Trump de-planes, an entry for the “nobody listened to the lyrics” hall of fame. pic.twitter.com/fJBPI7CxGQ
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) September 10, 2020

Wonder who controls the music publishing rights?

And the performance rights? If they don’t like the orange maggot, they will be quite angry.😡🎼

A lot of the aholes that showed up were out-of-state tRump yahoos. A fact, FWIW.

NYCVG

An outrage.
I expect John Fogerty/Creedence to complain.

https://www.insider.com/south-dakota-kristi-noem-covid-19-funds-5-million-ad-2020-9

Noem is rising fast on the idiot governors list

In the weeks since the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in early August, South Dakota has emerged as a COVID-19 hot spot.
Despite a spike in infections, Gov. Kristi Noem decided to spend $5 million in federal coronavirus relief funds on a tourism ad campaign to bring outsiders to the state, The Associated Press reported on Tuesday.
The ad, narrated by Noem, describes South Dakota as the “land of the free.”

polarbear4

Posting this on 9/11 deliberately. And many of you know why. Very few white male quotes will be posted here. But this white man made a difference. Then. And even more NOW. #WhatHappenedOnSeptember11th pic.twitter.com/NPfpXea65q
— RadioGeisha (@RadioGeisha) September 11, 2020

polarbear4

So angry on behalf of NYC teachers again. Seeing reports of teachers testing positive for covid and the DOE notifying no one, and everyone still just coming in to work (they're now picketing at one school where this happened).
— Laura Gabby ♥️🔨 (@CarpenterLauraG) September 11, 2020

polarbear4

🧵

The watches gathered copious amount of data and sent it, in the clear, to offshore servers. The watches incorporate cameras and the photos children take were also easily plundered by hackers.https://t.co/YBZtPnRdPp
3/
— Cory Doctorow #BLM (@doctorow) September 10, 2020

T and R, Ms. Benny!! 🦋💙🐋☮️👍

polarbear4

Everyone seems confused about why dems and the biden campaign haven't opened any swing state offices or implemented a working phone bank tool but it's really as simple as the fact that they already "won" the only "election" that mattered to them this year
— Gallifreyan Jedi (@JediofGallifrey) September 11, 2020

Or they are spending it on expensive planes, tiramsu, and digital ads. And plenty for the Obama-Clinton consultant class they’ve cultivated for 30 years.

$20 for a yard sign. ByeDone’s GOPuke Lite crowd figures they have it in the bag cos of…..tRump the orange maggot. 🤮🤮😡 Man, do I despise the PMC/DNC/Yuppie GOPuke party.🤮🤮🤮🤮

pb4: are you okay out there regarding these fires? I know you are an OR resident. 🦋💙🐋

polarbear4

i’m good orl. thanks. breathed smoke for a few days since my home is old and i didn’t get everything. plugged. but it’s decreasing now and im thankful.

just had a nice chat with a pup and moana and a couple of neighbors. 🌸

💕👍💖🌹🌹

polarbear4

mask on when outside. lol

wi62

That’s good news PB

phatkhat

Been super busy, but decided after seeing the news I needed to pop in and check on ya! We got smoke here from Cali yesterday. Weird.

NYCVG

Are you referring to the “Beat Bernie” campaign?

Good morning friends.

This is set up at the park across from the building I work in. I see some irony in this being exhibited at Klyde Warren Park (founded by Dakota Access owner) while promoting a message of equality and peace.

(will go back for better pictures when not so crowded)

assf

blm

3,000 Dead on 9/11 Meant Everything. 200,000 Dead of Covid Means Nothing. Here’s Why.
To America’s leaders, our lives have value only insofar as they can be used to create a desired panic.

last

Don midwest

For the first time in ages I posted comments on The Intercept

My comments are under DonMidwest

I stopped reading their comments section because there were so many trolls.

For this article I posted 4 comments. If you go there now, they will be at the top because the latest are first.

I made relevant and important comments. It has taken decades for me to be attuned to an audience and post comments that fit. I thank people on this site for many of my comments that seem to come out from another planet.

Surprised to see climate deniers there and my Latour comment was, in my opinion, right on target.

I went back to the NYT Magazine long article where he points out that truth, rationality depended on a common world. That no longer exists which is the source of so many problems.

I also linked to the Australian writer on Michel Serres

And a link to an article on food politics and the way that the media confuses people about food to the benefit of corporations and media. Shows how hard it is to get a message through.

The benefit of Trump has been to show the failure of what Latour calls The Modern Constitution, the common ground since The Enlightenment

Thanks Don!

wi62

I thought your comments were well rounded, but damn some of the trolls there are something else..

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/11/trump-isnt-talking-about-wildfires-oregon-california/?utm_source=reddit.com

It’s blue California so let it burn

Over the past 24 hours on his Twitter feed, President Trump has attacked Democrats and racial injustice protesters nearly a dozen times, mentioned law and order, and made false claims about mail voting.
But on the increasingly deadly, catastrophic wildfires in California and Oregon that have displaced 500,000 people, caused fire tornadoes, killed a 1-year-old, and blotted out the sun in one of America’s largest metropolitan areas, he’s been silent.
A search of the president’s Twitter feed and his public comments from Factba.se, plus a search of recent White House news briefings, finds no mention by him or his press secretary of one of the worst natural disasters to hit the West in modern times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/10/us/antifa-wildfires.html

Officials dealing with catastrophic fires on the West Coast have had to counter social media rumors that the blazes were set by antifascist activists, publicly pleading that people verify information before sharing it.
Despite their efforts, misinformation about the origin of the fires — which have killed at least 15 people and consumed millions of acres — continues to spread on Facebook and Twitter.
Several law enforcement agencies in Oregon said they had been flooded with inquiries about rumors that activists were responsible. On Thursday, several journalists reporting on fires near the city of Molalla, Ore., said they had been confronted by a group of armed people who were worried about unverified reports of arsonists in the area.

Good illustration of why I avoid those two sites like cyber plague!

polarbear4

some of ours were human caused. no details yet.

humphrey

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Not just CA, but also blue OR and WA state. 😠

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a33993033/trump-profane-9-11-legacy-first-responder-fund/

For example, if you happen to watch the president* at the memorial service in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, do so in the full knowledge that his administration* is allegedly holding up the money for which the surviving first-responders have fought, often literally to their last breaths. From the New York Daily News:
The Treasury Department mysteriously started withholding parts of payments — nearly four years ago — meant to cover medical services for firefighters, emergency medical technicians and paramedics treated by the FDNY World Trade Center Health Program, documents obtained by The News reveal. The payments were authorized and made by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which oversees the program. But instead of sending the funds to the city, the Treasury started keeping some of the money.
“This was just disappearing,” the program’s director, Dr. David Prezant, told The News. “This is the most amazing thing. This was disappearing — without any notification.” Prezant said he was docked about half a million dollars each year in 2016 and 2017. Then it crept up to about $630,000 in 2018 and 2019. This year, Treasury has nearly tripled its extractions, diverting $1.447 million through late August, according to Prezant.
And it seems that this unconscionable pilfering may be the result of a stupid and petty bureaucratic SNAFU because, if you dig past venality in this administration*, eventually you hit the bedrock incompetence.
Prezant was never able to get an explanation from NIOSH or the mammoth Department of Health and Human Services which has the agency under its umbrella. After years of complaining, Prezant did get a partial answer when Long Island Republican Rep. Pete King put his political weight behind the inquiry. That answer was that some other agency in the city has been in an unrelated feud with the feds over Medicare bills. For some reason, Treasury decided to stiff the FDNY. Neither the Treasury Department nor the White House answered requests for comment.