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1/27-29 Weekend News & Open Thread

The Progressive Wing Posted on January 27, 2023 by BennyJanuary 29, 2023

More news and commentary below.

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Posted in 2024 Elections, Black Lives Matter, grassroots, Justice Democrats, Our Revolution | Tagged Congress, Memphis, Open Thread, Police Brutality, progressive politics, Tyre Nichols | 110 Replies

12/19-21 News Roundup & Open Thread

The Progressive Wing Posted on December 19, 2022 by BennyDecember 20, 2022

According to TPM, the following GOP members have been referred to House Ethics Committee: Separately, Raskin said that four members of Congress will be handed over to the House Ethics Committee for ignoring the Jan. 6 committee’s subpoenas: Reps. Scott Perry (R-PA), Jim Jordan (R-OH), Andy Biggs (R-AZ) and House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). Join us in the comments!

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged #45, Congress, January 6 | 43 Replies

7/22-24 Weekend News and Open Thread

The Progressive Wing Posted on July 22, 2022 by BennyJuly 24, 2022

Friday came quickly this week. Join us for news and commentary below. Benny’s Bar will open later for summer drinks.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Bernie Sanders Joe Biden, Congress, Open Thread, Super Tuesday

1/10 Sunday News Roundup & OT

The Progressive Wing Posted on January 10, 2021 by BennyJanuary 10, 2021

Good day birdies!

I’ll start today’s thread with an op-ed in WaPo by Congresswoman Cori Bush.

This is the America that Black people know

My skin burned for 22 hours after I was pepper-sprayed. The memory of that burn stung with a new kind of pain on Wednesday as I, now a newly sworn-in member of Congress, watched in horror and disbelief as an insurrectionist mob overran the Capitol.

Back in July, we had been protesting at the police station in Florissant, Mo., where a police officer had recently run over a Black man with his car. The police had been beating protesters for weeks. They tear-gassed us to the point of suffocation for painting “Black Lives Matter” on a road, arrested us for putting our fists in the air and beat those who they’d taken into custody.

That night was no different from any other night. The officers rushed out of the station in riot gear, slapping their batons against their shields, holding shotguns loaded with rubber bullets and chanting commands. They chased us into the middle of the street, forcing us to backpedal blindly in the dark. The police were pushing with such force that people began falling to the ground all around me, finding themselves swarmed by officers who began hitting them with batons. I reached in to try to pull a woman away to safety.

They sprayed us with mace. It wasn’t your average mace, either. I used every trick in the book to try to make the pain stop — milk, water, dish detergent. But my skin did not stop burning for 22 hours.

On Wednesday, as I sat in the House gallery listening to my colleagues debate the certification of the electoral college votes, something prompted me to get up and leave. I left the chamber and quickly went to check on what was happening outside. The doors were locked, but as I stood on the second floor of the Capitol and looked out through windows in the doors, I could see Trump flags and Confederate flags gradually moving closer. I froze in disbelief. The next minute, my staffer was rushing me back to my office.

Once I was in my office and we secured the door, I felt a different kind of burn — this time inside. Watching on TV, we saw white supremacists stroll past Capitol Police, untouched and unscathed. Just minutes after we had locked our door, the mob entered the House Rotunda. The rioters broke windows, sat in the House speaker’s office and invaded the Senate floor.

There was no way to avoid the comparison or to duck the obvious answer: Would this have happened if the rioters were there to fight for Black lives rather than white supremacy? We’ve been tear-gassed for much less, beaten for much less and shot at for much less. We’ve been assaulted by law enforcement for much less.

But it’s clear to me that top law enforcement leaders on Capitol Hill had little interest in preventing this attempted insurrection. Videos have emerged of police taking selfies with protesters, walking them down the stairs and even opening gates for them. The front line of officers were not in riot gear, they were not wearing gas masks, they were not holding guns loaded with rubber bullets. And, above all else, there were no police dogs.

We faced police dogs when we fought for justice for Mike Brown in Ferguson in 2014. There were police dogs at protests for Black lives this year, from the East Coast to the West. The president himself tweeted in May that the “most vicious dogs” awaited protesters standing up for Black lives at the White House.

But there were no police dogs awaiting the white supremacists who gathered outside the Capitol. It was no coincidence that this tool of racial control was absent Wednesday, as rioters carried the flag of the slave-catcher’s Confederacy — and its modern manifestation, the Trump flag — through the House Rotunda.

Many have said that what transpired on Wednesday was not America. They are wrong. This is the America that Black people know. To declare that this is not America is to deny the reality that Republican members of the U.S. House and Senate incited this coup by treasonously working to overturn the results of the presidential election. It’s to deny the fact that one of my senators, Josh Hawley, went out of his way to salute the white supremacists before their attempted coup. It’s to deny that he appropriated the sign of Black power, the raised fist, into a white-supremacist salute — a fist he has never raised at a march for Black lives because he has never shown up to one. It’s to deny that what my Republican colleagues call “fraud” actually refers to the valid votes of Black, brown and Indigenous voters across this country who, in the midst of a pandemic that disproportionately kills us, overcame voter suppression in all of its forms to deliver an election victory for Joe Biden and Kamala D. Harris.

This is America, and it will continue to be America, until white supremacy is dismantled. Justice starts at removing each and every representative who incited this insurrection. I’ve unveiled my first piece of legislation that would do just that. We cannot denounce white supremacy and allow its endorsers to continue serving in our government.

image courtesy of Tulsa World

More news, tweets, videos in the comments. This also serves as an open thread.

Posted in Activism, grassroots, News, Open Thread | Tagged BLM, Congress, Cori Bush, Trump riots

12/30 Senate Debates NDAA & CASH Act; News Roundup & Open Thread

The Progressive Wing Posted on December 30, 2020 by BennyDecember 30, 2020

Daily Poster’s 10 Stats That Will Blow Your Mind

Read these ten stats related to the $2K checks and then you decide.

1. The total cost of $2,000 checks ($465 billion) is less than half the amount that American billionaires have made during the pandemic ($1 trillion). The total cost of the checks is less than the amount that just 16 American billionaires increased their net worth by during the pandemic ($471 billion).

2. Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk gained more wealth during the pandemic ($158 billion) than Congress just authorized for additional unemployment benefits for millions of Americans ($120 billion).

3. Jeff Bezos’s personal wealth increased more every second of 2020 ($2,800) than Congress is considering giving Americans who are facing eviction, starvation and bankruptcy ($2,000).

4. Congressional lawmakers are being paid $3,300 of government money every week to come up with ways to block $2,000 checks to millions of Americans.

5. It took Congress less than a month to pass legislation giving a $700 billion bailout to bank executives during the financial crisis. It has taken Congress more than 8 months to even seriously consider a far less expensive bill to give $2,000 checks to millions of Americans during this economic crisis.

6. A $2,000 survival check would give the average soldier more money than the proposed 3 percent military pay increase that is included in defense legislation that Sens. Bernie Sanders and Ed Markey are filibustering in order to force a vote on the survival checks.

7. The richest 5 percent of Americans received more in Trump tax cuts in 2020 ($145 billion) than Congress is spending on increased unemployment benefits for millions of Americans during the economic crisis ($120 billion).

8. In 2016, “children, elderly, disabled people, and students made up around 70 percent of the poor,” according to the People’s Policy Project. Unlike unemployment benefits, $2,000 checks would help them.

9. About 60 percent of Georgia households make less than $75,000, meaning Georgia Republican senators allowing $2,000 checks to be blocked would deny aid to roughly 2 million of their state’s households as they run for reelection.

10. As Republicans try to block the $2,000 check legislation, a new national survey found that 78 percent of Americans support it, even as some pundits insist that the proposal is “divisive.”

News, tweets, videos in the comments section. Last Hump Day in 2020!

Posted in Bernie Sanders, News, Open Thread, Video | Tagged Congress

Mel Gagarin For US Congress (NY-6)

The Progressive Wing Posted on May 8, 2020 by LieparDestinMay 8, 2020

Mel Gagarin For US Congress (NY-6)

Melquiades Gagarin is a Queens native, a community organizer, a policy advocate, a father of three, and a punk rocker running for Congress to fight for you.

Mel was born in Elmhurst to a Puerto Rican working-class mother and a Filipino immigrant father, and raised by his mom and abuela. He went to Resurrection Ascension and Archbishop Molloy in the district before attending American University in Washington, DC. He worked as a congressional aide representing large parts of the 6th Congressional District, advocated on the Hill alongside criminal justice reformers, and organized across Queens as part of a movement to build a more just future for the nation’s most diverse county.

Mel has always been dedicated to fighting for progress. He is running to fight for working-class people, people of color, immigrants, the elderly, and our future. He won’t be accepting any money from corporations, the fossil fuel industry or real estate developers. The only interests he will ever answer to are those of neighbors in the district. Mel lives in Kew Gardens with his wife Aleda, their three beautiful children, and their dachshund, Chewbacca.

Continue reading for more on Mel.

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Posted in 2020 Elections | Tagged Congress, Mel Gagarin, NY-6

Alex Morse for Congress MA-01

The Progressive Wing Posted on May 1, 2020 by BennyMay 1, 2020

Let’s introduce Alex Morse, MA-01, running as a Justice Democrat this year.

Alex’s story in the 1st congressional district starts in a Holyoke housing project where his parents met and fell in love. Both his mother and father grew up in poverty. Alex’s parents started a family as teenagers and neither had a chance to attend college. They worked tirelessly with what they had, struggling from job to low-wage job on public assistance in public housing. Over time they were able to make their way into the working class. Now 33 years down the road, Alex’s father heads to the same meat packing company in Springfield every day of the week for work. And Alex still recalls the neighborhood family daycare his mom ran at his childhood home.

Alex’s parents worked hard to provide opportunities for their children — Alex and his two older brothers — that they didn’t have. Alex’s gratitude for his parents, and for the city of Holyoke, led to his passion for public service. The gratitude he has to his parents, and to Holyoke, became a passion for public service. At 16, Alex came out to his parents, and their response of unconditional love and support gave him the courage to bring his whole self into this life, and into this work.

His interest in public service brought him to Brown University, and led him to become the first member of his family to earn a college degree. While a student, he spent his summers in Holyoke, coming back to his hometown to serve under-resourced youth like himself learn skills for future success. Back at school, Alex’s vision for organizing and helping his hometown only grew deeper. He announced his candidacy for mayor of Holyoke at age 21, while still a senior at Brown. He has served as Holyoke’s mayor since 2012, winning 4 elections during his time in City Hall. Elected at 22, Alex is the youngest and first openly gay mayor in the history of the city of Holyoke.

Since taking office, Alex has spearheaded the city’s economic rebirth in the vision of a new generation using Holyoke’s unique assets: renewable energy and existing infrastructure, to prepare the city for the coming climate change demands. Millions of public and private dollars have grown downtown with green energy projects. Vacant mill buildings are now home to community dining, arts industries, the Holyoke Community College Culinary Arts Program, and more.

This growth all turns on Alex’s belief that the greatest asset of any American district is its people. Whether pursuing a housing strategy that promotes growth while avoiding gentrification, giving citizens tools to launch small businesses, or improving public safety through community policing, Alex has always moved forward with the doors of City Hall wide open to the voices of its biggest treasure: The People.

As Mayor, he implemented and defended a needle exchange program to fight the scourge of the opioid epidemic. His commitment here was spurred not only by the public costs, but by his family experience with his brother’s heroin addiction and seeing firsthand the emotional, financial, and generational toll that this disease has on all the people it touches. He opened the city’s arms in welcome to hundreds of Puerto Rican families displaced by Hurricane Maria. He has been a steadfast defender of reproductive justice, a leader for affordable housing solutions, and he was the very first politician in the state to endorse marijuana legalization, citing both economic opportunity and the disproportionate impact of drug laws on minority communities. Alex is a leading champion for progressive values.

Alex regularly travels the country to share his experiences with students and other leaders. He’s been a lecturer in Urban Government and Politics at UMASS Amherst since 2014. His teaching seeks to instill in his students a deep belief in democracy and the capacity of politics to make communities stronger, more prosperous, and more just. His life has been about always doing the work, always seeing the people, and always bringing it home.

Shall we add him to our list? BTW, there are no GOPers so far who have announced any intentions to challenge the seat. Primary is September 1st.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Alex Morse, Congress, Justice Democrats, MA01, Massachusetts

Nick Rubando for Congress OH-05

The Progressive Wing Posted on April 29, 2020 by LieparDestinApril 29, 2020

Rubando for Congress

Nick grew up in Holland, Ohio—a small working class town outside of Toledo. He’s the oldest of three kids. His mother is an artist and a hairdresser. His father is a small business owner. Growing up, his parents were adamant about creativity, community, and connection. They encouraged Nick to participate in the community and find ways to give back. As a result, Nick spent much of his youth volunteering and finding ways to be of service.

In high school, Nick had the opportunity to travel abroad, engaging in service work with a humanitarian organization. This experience opened his eyes to underserved communities world-wide. When he returned home, Nick realized that many of these same injustices were present in his own neighborhood.

Nick went on to study at Indiana University where he received a degree in Journalism. During his freshman year of college, his mother was unable to afford health insurance, and Nick had no way to help her. That is when Nick began volunteering for the Obama campaign. Nick worked to register student voters, helping to flip that state for the first time in nearly 50 years. When President Obama won and the Affordable Care Act was passed into law, Nick’s mother was able to get the care she needed. This medical security gave her the freedom to open her own small business. This was the moment that sparked Nick’s interest in politics, because he realized that every decision, from voting to volunteering, affects millions of people’s lives— just like it affected his mother’s.

..

OH-05 is located in the heartland of America: a district made up of farmers, labor workers, teachers, and nurses. Our current representative is a bureaucratic millionaire, bought by the very companies he is tasked to control. He does not speak for the people of our district, nor does he listen to them

Nick believes that we deserve better. In OH-05, we work hard, and we need to know we have someone working hard for us— someone who understands the burdens of student debt and inaccessible healthcare. Our district needs someone who knows how to punch a time clock, and who will advocate for working people.

Nick knows that this fight will not be easy. We are up against a gerrymandered district, an entrenched incumbent, and dark money forces that are ready to spend endless amounts of dollars to ensure that corporate America stays in charge. This might seem daunting, but Nick has been here before. He has organized, he has lead, he has overcome.

We are building a grassroots movement powered by generational change. We know the people of OH-05 want to be heard, and that is why Nick is ready to listen. He will go to every county, every city, and every town. Our campaign will be powered by people, not corporations. Nick believes in OH-05, and the future belongs to those who believe.

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Posted in 2020 Elections | Tagged Congress, Nick Rubando, OH, OH-05

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