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FOCUS: Nina Turner and Cori Bush Reveal Democrats' Compromised Dynamic |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=60417"><span class="small">Sam Rosenthal and Ryan Black, Progressive Hub</span></a>
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Sunday, 08 August 2021 11:11 |
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Excerpt: "It was a night of contrasts. While in Ohio's 11th Congressional District, Nina Turner was conceding to Shontel Brown - whose campaign was propped up by millions of dollars from Republican donors and pro-Israel PACs, first term representative Cori Bush succeeded in saving millions of families from being thrown out onto the streets."
Representative Cori Bush and Nina Turner. (photo: Getty Images)
Nina Turner and Cori Bush Reveal Democrats' Compromised Dynamic
By Sam Rosenthal and Ryan Black, Progressive Hub
08 August 21
 t was a night of contrasts. While in Ohio’s 11th Congressional District, Nina Turner was conceding to Shontel Brown — whose campaign was propped up by millions of dollars from Republican donors and pro-Israel PACs, first term representative Cori Bush succeeded in saving millions of families from being thrown out onto the streets.
On August 3rd, the Centers for Disease Control announced an extension to the eviction moratorium that had protected vulnerable families from homelessness since the COVID-19 pandemic began. This marked an about face for the Biden administration, which has previously insisted that it did not have constitutional authority to intervene in the sunsetting eviction moratorium. The change in course was almost certainly spurred by progressive activists and electeds, led by Rep. Cori Bush (MO-01), who spent five days sleeping on the steps of the Capitol. Rep. Bush, who had herself experienced homelessness earlier in life, brought attention not just to the impending eviction crisis, but also to the administration and moderate Congressional Democrats’ disinclination to take action.
For now, her plan has worked: the Biden administration bowed to progressive pressure (and probably fear of further embarrassment at the hands of their own party members), and millions of families have been saved from eviction. For a night, at least, it seemed progressive politics had worked; and that they had won.
But the feeling of victory was short-lived.
On the same night, in northeast Ohio’s 11th District, corporate-backed Democrats won their war against Nina Turner. Turner, who, like Cori Bush, would have become another militant progressive voice in Congress, saw a 35 point lead evaporate over the last two months of the campaign, finishing six points behind Brown. Millions of dollars poured into the district in the final two months, much of it from the Democratic Majority for Israel, a pro-Israel PAC that had previously spent huge sums to tarnish the candidacies of Bernie Sanders and Jamaal Bowman. The PAC and its allies unleashed a vicious ad campaign against Turner, spreading lies about her, and framing her as an enemy of the Democratic Party.
The overlapping events neatly framed an uncomfortable dynamic that has taken hold in the Democratic Party in the wake of progressive insurgencies since 2016. While Democratic donors and their allies spent millions of dollars to defeat a people-powered progressive, just 400 miles away, another icon of the progressive movement nearly single handedly saved millions of families from eviction. The dissonance in approaches highlights a Democratic Party leadership that, while it may pay lip service, often isn’t serious about doing work for working people.
The behavior of the Democratic establishment shows that even though Nina Turner’s progressive politics are effective and can succeed in bringing material benefits to working people across the country, Democratic Party leaders are not on board. More accurately, their goals aren’t aligned. The Democratic establishment, funded by corporate and militarist lobbies, will continue to aggressively fight off progressive momentum wherever it takes root.
But there’s reason to be hopeful. Like Nina Turner, Cori Bush lost her first run for Congress in 2018 — and by a whole lot more than Turner. In 2018, when Bush first took on Lacy Clay, the scion of a well-connected political family, she was trounced by nearly 20 points. The race seemed unwinnable even with two more years of campaigning. And yet, in 2020, she unseated Clay. And, fewer than two years after winning, she led the efforts that saved millions of people from homelessness.
Like with Cori Bush in 2018, I think it’s safe to say that we haven’t seen the last of Nina Turner.
It’s way too early to know if Nina Turner will take the route that Cori Bush took and face up against Brown again in 2022. What is already clear, however, is that the progressive surge in the US is here to stay — and it has learned resilience. Since 2016, every postmortem declaring the end of progressive momentum has been proven wrong; another movement has blossomed or another candidacy has been declared nearly as soon as the words have left the establishment’s lips. Whatever the next electoral cycle brings, corporate Democrats everywhere can be sure to find themselves fighting for their political lives.
Read more coverage of Nina Turner’s run for Congress here.
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Marjorie Taylor Greene Suggests People Encouraging Others to Get Vaccinated Should Be Shot |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=44994"><span class="small">Bess Levin, Vanity Fair</span></a>
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Sunday, 08 August 2021 08:33 |
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Levin writes: "The one happy byproduct of the delta variant is that as it causes a surge in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in the U.S., it also appears to be inspiring people, by scaring the shit out of them, to get vaccinated."
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. (photo: Tom Williams/Getty Images)
Marjorie Taylor Greene Suggests People Encouraging Others to Get Vaccinated Should Be Shot
By Bess Levin, Vanity Fair
08 August 21
“We all love our Second Amendment rights, and we’re not real big on strangers showing up on our front door, are we? They might not like the welcome they get.”
 he one happy byproduct of the delta variant is that as it causes a surge in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in the U.S., it also appears to be inspiring people, by scaring the shit out of them, to get vaccinated. On Thursday, White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients told reporters that in the prior 24 hours alone, the U.S. had administered more than 864,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines, including 585,000 first shots. Are these people months late to the party? Yes. Is it better late than never? Also yes.
Then you have the Americans who continue to refuse to get inoculated against a deadly disease which, among other things, infected 84% more children and teens this week than last week. Why won‘t these people—not the ones who have some kind of medical issue preventing them from getting the jab but ones who simply don’t want to—take an extremely simple step that will protect their health and the health of those around them? Ignorance is one reason. Selfishness is another. And then you have the fact that a contingent of terrible politicians and conservative pundits are infecting their brains with all manner of misinformation, cheering them on in their refusal to do something for the greater good, and, in at least one instance, suggesting they shoot anyone encouraging people to get vaccinated.
Unsurprisingly, that politician is Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose own existence is hopefully inspiring scientists to develop a vaccine against crazy. At an event last month in Alabama, the Georgia representative, who has previously compared mask mandates to the Holocaust and vaccine requirements to segregation, suggested that the Biden administration’s door-to-door vaccination push will result in government officials showing up to people’s homes and demanding personal information for extremely nefarious purposes, and that those people should be greeted with the barrel of a gun.
“You lucky people here in Alabama might get a knock on your door, because I hear Alabama might be one of the most unvaccinated states,” Greene told the crowd, reportedly prompting cheers over the state’s low vaccination rate. “Well, Joe Biden wants to come talk to you guys. He's going to be sending one of his police state friends to your front door to knock on the door, take down your name, your address, your family members’ names, your phone numbers, your cellphone numbers, probably ask for your Social Security number, and whether you’ve taken the vaccine or not. What they don’t know is in the South, we all love our Second Amendment rights, and we’re not real big on strangers showing up on our front door, are we? They might not like the welcome they get.”
Later, Greene bashed Anthony Fauci, claiming, like a QAnon thread come to life, that COVID-19 “is his baby,” adding: “That is his experiment, and he’s getting to watch it in the real world, like on a live television show where he has a front row seat. He gets to watch what happens.”
Asked by NBC News for comment, Greene’s spokesman, Nick Dyer, said, “These claims are ridiculous and yet another conspiracy theory from the left.” He neither specified what claims he was talking about nor acknowledged the fact that there is video footage of Greene’s remarks.
This isn’t the first time that the congresswoman from Georgia, who has loads of time on her hands after being stripped of her committee assignments, has encouraged violence. Prior to being elected to Congress, she claimed, on more than one occasion, that Nancy Pelosi was guilty of treason, noting that’s “a crime punishable by death.” She also did a Facebook Live broadcast from Pelosi’s office in which she suggested the House speaker would “suffer death” or “be in prison” for her “treason.” In another video the same day, she suggested Representative Maxine Waters was “just as guilty of treason as Nancy Pelosi.” She also liked comments on Facebook calling for either John Kerry or Barack Obama to be hanged. Just something to think about when she insists she never meant people should be hurt when she encouraged a Second Amendment–style “welcome.”
North Carolina rep. claims requiring children to wear masks is “psychological child abuse”
Republicans care deeply about children, except when it comes to actually protecting them from a highly contagious virus.
And speaking of children…
The state of Texas now appears to be actively trying to get kids (and their teachers) sick. No, really:
In guidance released Thursday, the Texas Education Agency reaffirmed Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order that masks cannot be required in Texas schools while adding that contact tracing is not required if and when positive cases of COVID-19 are confirmed in classrooms. The TEA, the state agency that oversees primary and secondary education in Texas, published a document titled Public Health Guidance Thursday that offered no mitigation strategies to protect teachers and students against infection from COVID-19 and instead only outlined the steps to take when someone tests positive for the virus.
According to the TEA, if someone who has been in a school is confirmed by a test to have COVID-19 the school must notify the local health department and the Texas Department of State Health Services. The TEA does not require the school to notify anyone else of the positive case or investigate who that person may have been in contact with.
While the agency said that if a school learns a student or students have been in close contact with someone who tested positive for COVID, it should inform the students’ parents, it noted that said parents are under no obligation to keep their kids home and are free to keep sending them to school without interruption where, obviously, they could subsequently infect other people.
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Eighty in Sight, the Life Force Still With Us |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=47905"><span class="small">Garrison Keillor, Garrison Keillor's Website</span></a>
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Saturday, 07 August 2021 13:33 |
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Keillor writes: "I was on the phone with a woman from the bank who was helping me fill out a form online with my name, date of birth, SS number, email address, etc., and each time I wrote something down, she said, 'Perfect,' as if I were doing a balance beam exercise."
Garrison Keillor. (photo: MPR)
Eighty in Sight, the Life Force Still With Us
By Garrison Keillor, Garrison Keillor's Website
07 August 21
was on the phone with a woman from the bank who was helping me fill out a form online with my name, date of birth, SS number, email address, etc., and each time I wrote something down, she said, “Perfect,” as if I were doing a balance beam exercise. Being on the verge of 80 as I am, a day away from 79, I’m used to being kindergartened by the young. I went to a physical therapist once who said, “Wonderful” when I stood with my eyes closed and didn’t fall over. The message was clear: you’re a burned-out wreck and it’s amazing you’re still mobile. Next stop: Happy Acres.
The biblical allotment is seventy and after that you’re on the down escalator, a drain on the economy, a waste of space, you have little stake in the future and are voting for the past, you’re slowing down and becoming an obstruction. So the young are hinting it’s time to take the long walk across the ice fields and disappear.
Thank you but I would rather not, and anyway the ice fields are melting into enormous swamps and I’d return and track mud into the house.
My justification for living to 80 and beyond is simply this: I am a writer who provides a literary rest stop for people no longer compelled to pore over the news after we got a competent president who didn’t flunk civics. For four years previous, we had to pay close attention, same as if you went to your ophthalmologist who recommended you put Lysol in your eyes and you look at his certificate and see he’s actually an oyster shucker. So you switch to an actual eye doctor and there’s less need for worry. Enjoy yourself.
We live, we learn. An old friend went to the hospital for shoulder surgery with months of rehab ahead of him, all from having tried to put on his pants one leg at a time. His right foot got caught in the skinny jeans and he came crashing down on the bathtub. Skinny jeans are to make a guy look like a bronc rider, not a sanitation worker from the Bronx, pure vanity. I gave them up long ago. Now I’ve decided to lean against a wall while pulling on my pants, a small sacrifice of manly pride to avoid intense suffering. I feel young and limber so long as I’m seated but when I put on my pants, I’m old again. So I’ll make accommodations.
Eventually a drug will come along that makes you feel young but it’ll come at a price: your vocabulary will shrink to a couple hundred words and you’ll be illiterate. It’ll be an interesting choice, aging vs. stupefaction. How big a vocabulary do you need to be happy? Not many words, right? — Sun. Food. Sleep. Coffee. Milk. Don’t. Enough. Goodbye. Delete. Unsubscribe. — What else do you need? I myself don’t need “systemic” or “pandemic” or “cancel culture.” I delete them all.
I’ve gotten fond of the Chinese word “qi,” pronounced “chee,” meaning “life force,” (plural: cheese), which my wife has used numerous times to whip me at Scrabble. It’s a game my mother loved and I was her playing partner. Being fundamentalists, we frowned on games, believing we should take pleasure in the Lord, not in the devices of man, but it was a pleasant way to spend an hour together while inflicting pain on each other, so we did.
I forgot about Scrabble for sixty years, but the pandemic brought it back and my wife and I play it daily, and usually she slits my throat and sometimes I wonder if we’re using a Braille edition and she’s reading the valuable letters, Q,Z, J, K, with her fingertips when she draws them from the bag, but last night I won narrowly, using the life force, and she didn’t say “Perfect” or “Wonderful” when I did, she was a sore loser, which gave my victory meaning, but I told her I love her and she allowed me to sleep with her, as usual. She wears the pants in the family and I put mine on very carefully: as Luther said, here I stand, I can do no other. It’s a fine time of life and I hope Joe is enjoying the big house with the great lawn around it, the office conveniently located downstairs and down the hall.
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FOCUS: I Slept on the Capitol Steps Because I've Been Evicted Three Times in My Life |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=60409"><span class="small">Rep. Cori Bush, CNN</span></a>
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Saturday, 07 August 2021 12:05 |
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Bush writes: "This week, the limitless power of people was on full display from the steps of the US House of Representatives."
Rep. Cori Bush, D-MO, holds a 'housing is a human right' sign at the House steps on Saturday morning, July 31, 2021. (photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images)
I Slept on the Capitol Steps Because I've Been Evicted Three Times in My Life
By Rep. Cori Bush, CNN
07 August 21
his week, the limitless power of people was on full display from the steps of the US House of Representatives.
When Congresswomen Ayanna Pressley and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined me on the top of that marble staircase last Friday night, the doors to the chamber locked behind us, we sat shocked in disbelief. We could not comprehend how Congress had left for August recess after failing to pass legislation to extend the eviction moratorium. My adrenaline was pumping, I felt like I needed to take off running until we found a solution. It was a familiar feeling — one rooted in trauma. I've been evicted three times in my life — once following a violent domestic assault in which a former partner left me for dead.
I've lived out of my car for months with my two babies. I've seen my belongings in trash bags along my backseat. I know what that notice on the door means. Cold from the elements or wondering where I could find a bathroom, I've wondered who was speaking up in DC for people in my situation. I never knew who had the resources to make this situation end. Now that I was in Congress myself, a member of one of the three branches of our government in a position to act, I knew we couldn't leave.
U.S. Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) becomes emotional during a news conference on the eviction moratorium at the Capitol on August 03, 2021 in Washington, DC.
With a camping chair in one arm and my phone in the other, I invited my colleagues to return to DC and join me on the stairs of our chamber. At first it was just me and my staff. Then my sisters in service, community members, friends and colleagues turned out in a show of force I could never have foreseen.
By Tuesday, we had welcomed dozens of House and Senate colleagues, moderate and progressive, in pouring summer rain, cold of the night, and intense midday heat, all in the service of a single message: keeping people in their homes as the eviction moratorium lapsed.
For the first two days, we sat upright — barred from laying down, per Capitol grounds regulations— and used every platform and organizing tool we could to get the word out and keep the pressure on. As the week went on, we became barred from even sitting in chairs.
No one thought this would work. We were junior House members, activists, neighbors, and people passing by, engaged in a movement we couldn't yet comprehend. Yet, in just five days, our movement pulled out a victory from the most powerful office in our country. The Biden administration announced a new eviction freeze that would help Americans in places experiencing high spread of Covid-19 cases, which is the majority of counties in the US, through October 3.
When I walked away from the steps Wednesday morning and sat down on my flight home to St. Louis, it finally hit me: we did it.
I thought of the nearly 8,700 households in my St. Louis district that were already on the eviction docket as the moratorium expired. Those households, many with children, will now be able to rest safely in their homes, while the remaining $43.5 billion in emergency rental assistance is distributed by states and localities.
I thought of the movement working to save Black lives, which we galvanized on the streets of Ferguson in 2014. We spent 400 days protesting and showed the world what is possible when you show up for what is right and do not leave until change is made. We made our voices heard at the highest levels of our government.
I thought of the regular, everyday people who showed up, stayed up, and helped fuel this powerful movement. Our votes, our voices and our volition will never again be taken for granted.
After an election year in which Black, brown, Indigenous, queer, and other marginalized Americans organized and turned out in record numbers to deliver the presidency to Joe Biden — only to see voting rights, LGBTQIA+ rights, immigrant rights, police reform, and so much more get blocked in the Senate by the filibuster — our victory has deepened my belief that change is not only possible, but achievable.
Now that we have again demonstrated what grassroots movements are capable of, there is no limit to what we can do. The change that we have been marching, organizing, and pushing for is within reach. We just have to take it.
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