The Resistance (signs of hope)

[GreyhoundFan]

I found this interesting: "Why a ‘decentralized swarm of resistance’ is the best way to contain Trump"

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“Majority rule is always shaped by minority will.”

That bit of wisdom from Eric Liu, author of “You’re More Powerful Than You Think: A Citizen’s Guide to Making Change Happen,” hit me like a thunderbolt. Majority rule has always meant that after the people have their say at the ballot box, whichever side wins sets the agenda. But I didn’t fully appreciate the minority’s vital role in shaping said agenda.

“At no time in 2010 were tea partyers a majority of national Republicans, much less a majority of the people of the United States, and yet, they completely shifted our politics, some might say, off the rails,” Liu said in the latest episode of “Cape Up.” “But whatever you like about or don’t like about their policies, they won that game.”

...

“Right now, ‘Indivisible’ may or may not constitute a majority of the people, much less even a majority of Democrats or progressives,” Liu said, “but they are activated, they are organized.”

As the founder of Citizen University and the executive director of the Aspen Institute Citizenship and American Identity Program, Liu is an expert in and advocate for the power of civic engagement. To prove the power of minority will, he opens his book with the story of the tomato pickers of Immokalee, Fla. “For decades, those tomatoes were picked by the hands of migrant workers, who were often undocumented and basically subjected to a form of what you would think of as indentured servitude,” he said. So they organized. They went on strike for and eventually received better wages and working conditions.

“They didn’t have connections. They didn’t have clout. Many of them weren’t literate in English, much less literate in power, in power politics,” Liu explained. “I open the book with that story because, if they could do it, there’s really no good reason why you or I can’t do it.” In his book and during our conversation, Liu runs through bottom-up protests that have had national impact. Let’s take Occupy Wall Street. When I compared it negatively to the tea party movement, Liu pushed back convincingly by comparing it to a fallen tree one might encounter in the forests near his Seattle home.

When you walk around there you see a lot of fallen trees, and you might say, “Oh what a bummer, that tree fell. It failed.” But what these fallen trees are is what they call nurse logs. Out of those fallen trees, you start seeing other trees sprouting from the mulch and the nutrients of that fallen tree. I think Occupy Wall Street was just that kind of nurse log. It didn’t “succeed” in the way that the tea party did, but the way that it occurred and the way that it gave us a language of the 1 percent and the 99 percent is the mulch out of which the Bernie Sanders campaign grew. It is the mulch out of which the $15 Now movement grew. It is the mulch out of which a whole slate of new kinds of worker organizing endeavors are emerging.

Liu argues that one of the keys to the success of Occupy, Black Lives Matter and the women’s marches  — even the science marches that happened over the weekend — is the decentralized leadership structure. And this, he believes, is the key to fighting President Trump. “The way to counter Trump is not to try to create a giant single point of opposition,” Liu said. “It is exactly this kind of decentralized swarm of resistance and pushback that’s actually going to contain him.”

Listen to the podcast to hear Liu explain how “you can create brand-new power out of thin air.” He also talks about the freakout over “this incredible period, where whiteness and American-ness are splitting apart,” and he’ll outline his citizen’s guide to making change happen. Liu is emphatic about one option employed by the “there’s no point in me being involved” crowd.

“Not voting is voting,” he said, “to hand your power over, to throw it away and give it to somebody whose interests are going to be harmful to your own.”

The podcast is linked in the article.

[GreyhoundFan]

"‘We have to take a stand’: Mormon history scholars file brief against Trump travel ban"

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Muslims fearful that President Trump’s travel ban targets them are finding an ally in scholars of Mormon history.

A group of 19 scholars recently filed a brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit comparing the government’s proposed treatment of Muslims to how it treated Mormons in the 19th century.

“This Court should ensure that history does not repeat itself,” wrote the scholars, only some of whom are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, popularly known as the Mormon Church. The church is headquartered in Salt Lake City.

The court is expected to hear arguments on Trump’s revised ban next month. That ban suspends the admission of new refugees and new visas to citizens of six Muslim-majority countries — Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

...

“Most relevant to this case, animus against the Mormons led federal officials and lawmakers to attack Mormon immigration,” the scholars said. “In 1879, the Secretary of State sent a circular letter to all American diplomatic officers, calling on them to pressure European governments to prohibit Mormon emigration from their countries.”

Many Americans and even many Mormons have either forgotten or are unaware of this history, according W. Paul Reeve, who teaches classes on Mormon history at the University of Utah. He was among the scholars who signed the brief.

“My hope is that it is a piece of evidence that the courts will consider and help them as they deliberate the course they will take,” Reeve told The Washington Post. “We are a pluralistic society and we value religious pluralism. An attack against one religion is an attack against all religion.”

The scholars said that the federal government carried out a sustained campaign against church members, which included “several measures” to restrict Mormon immigration, which had grown because of a “successful overseas proselytizing program.”

“Latter-day Saints suffered mob violence countenanced by state officials, legal attacks by the federal government, and a crusade of discrimination waged against Mormon immigrants because of their religion,” the court document said.

After the religion was founded in 1830, Mormons were driven out of Missouri by hostile crowds and later endured the same fate in Illinois, where the faith’s founder, Joseph Smith, was killed by a mob. The document acknowledges that some of the hostility was due to the Mormon practice of polygamy, which the church officially adopted in 1852 and “publicly abandoned” in 1890, the document states.

But the animus toward Mormons existed before polygamy was embraced, the scholars argue. In many cases, it carried overtones of “Islamophobia.”

...

Richard Bushman, an emeritus professor at Columbia University, who signed the brief, said in a statement that Mormons were “among the most reviled” when they came to the United States.

“We have to take a stand with those who flee to America as a refuge,” he said.

...

I found the article interesting. To be honest, I know very little about the Mormon migration and situation in the early days.

[fraurosena]

The Borg were wrong. Resistance isn't futile.

https://www.indy100.com/article/donald-trump-rally-tickets-twitter-mum-resistance-michael-moore-7704691

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I love this inventive pettiness!

[bashfulpixie]

15 hours ago, fraurosena said:

The Borg were wrong. Resistance isn't futile.

https://www.indy100.com/article/donald-trump-rally-tickets-twitter-mum-resistance-michael-moore-7704691

I love this inventive pettiness!

That is the most amazing form of passive aggressiveness I've ever seen and I LOVE it.

[GreyhoundFan]

"The best signs from the People’s Climate March". There are lots of great signs shown in the article.

 

"Climate March draws massive crowd to D.C. in sweltering heat"

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On a sweltering April day, tens of thousands of demonstrators assembled in Washington on Saturday for the latest installment of the regular protests that punctuate the Trump era. This large-scale climate march marked President Trump’s first 100 days in office, which have already seen multiple rollbacks of environmental protections and Obama climate policies.

The Peoples Climate March, which originated with a massive demonstration in New York in September 2014, picked a symbolically striking day for its 2017 event. The temperature reached 91 degrees at D.C.’s National Airport at 2:59 p.m., tying a heat record for April 29 in the district set in 1974 — which only amplified the movement’s message.

...

“Hang on EPA, the midterms are coming. 2018,” read one sign carried by Kathy Sommer of Stony Brook, N.Y, as the protest assembled on the Mall Saturday morning.

“There is no Planet B,” read another sign by Eva Gunther of Washington, D.C., displaying one of the most popular and oft repeated messages of the event (and of last week’s March for Science).

Hillary Clinton tweeted praise of the marchers Saturday afternoon, writing, “Great to see ppl take to the streets & combat climate change, protect the next generation & fight for jobs & economic justice.”

President Trump was in Pennsylvania for a rally on Saturday and did not tweet any immediate reaction.

...

The climate event differs from last week’s March for Science in its focus and also its participants — only 1 out of 8 contingents of Saturday’s protest featured scientific researchers. The rest included labor activists, indigenous people already facing severe effects from climate change, and children and young people who will live with the effects of climate change longest as the Earth continues to warm.

But there was plenty of overlap between the marches. Ken Hunter, 78, traveled from Charles Town, W.Va., for the climate march and also came to Washington for the March for Science last weekend and the Tax March on April 15 — and attended a Women’s March in Florida.

“Hell, I haven’t marched this much in years,” Hunter said with a laugh. “But these are all very important issues and it was important to be out here.”

...

The marchers unleashed their anger as they passed directly in front of the Trump hotel where they booed loudly and chanted “Shame!” and “We want a leader, not a creepy tweeter!” and “we will not go away, welcome to your 100 days!”

...

Organizers told the National Park Service that they expect 50,000 to 100,000 attendees. By late afternoon, they were claiming to have greatly exceeded that and reached 200,000. More than 375 satellite marches were held around the United States and even more around the world, from Manila to Amsterdam.

...

Some friends of mine went to today's march in DC. They also attended the Women's march in January. They told me both were far larger than expected, but peaceful and focused.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump has galvanized activists on the left. Can they stay energized?"

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VIRGINIA BEACH — The room was full of strangers, but they had a common purpose. The retired pastors who cut their teeth on the civil rights movement. The sociology professor from a local college. The grandmother of three who showed up despite having recently suffered a stroke.

“We know the Democratic majority can win if we get people to the polls,” said a woman standing in front.

“There’s a great number of Republicans who are sick to their stomachs as well,” said a 65-year-old retired consultant. “Don’t discount them.”

“Frankly, there are a lot of people, Democrats, who are not paying attention,” lamented a man next to him.

Kimberly Anne Tucker sat and listened. A few months ago, she was like them, with a sinking feeling about a country that had elected Donald Trump to the presidency and an urge to do something about it. One night after Trump’s inauguration, after watching “The Rachel Maddow Show,” she opened her laptop and signed on to lead Indivisible 757, the southeastern-Virginia branch of a new national group opposed to Trump.

Within weeks, the group swelled to 2,500 members. They started staging protests at the Virginia Beach Town Center and had a candlelight vigil for the Affordable Care Act outside their Republican congressman’s office. A sister organization, HOPE, popped up to support local refugees and immigrants. Several smaller breakout groups followed, including this one, which brought 20 people out on a rainy Sunday afternoon to plot ways to push this coastal Virginia region to be more blue.

The work has given Tucker, 50, a retired teacher and school administrator who a few months ago was focused on raising her 18-month-old granddaughter, a way to channel her concerns.

“Of course, part of our agenda is increasing voter engagement,” she said. “But we just never, ever, will turn away from our primary responsibility of resistance to Trump.”

One hundred days after Trump took office, the resistance efforts that grabbed headlines in the form of massive women-led marches across the country the day after the inauguration have settled into something less visible but perhaps much broader.

...

It is unclear whether this nascent Democratic movement can maintain enough momentum to create change as effectively as tea party conservatives did after Barack Obama’s election. That movement, which grew out of conservative outrage, pushed the GOP to the right and laid the groundwork for Trump’s victory.

Liberals seeking to build a similar power base face different challenges. They remain fractured after the election, some still identifying as supporters of Hillary Clinton or her foe in the Democratic primary, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). They argue over ideological purity, such as whether there is space in the Democratic Party for opponents of abortion rights, for example.

Progressives have other structural challenges that make their task more difficult, particularly their concentration in big cities and university towns and their tendency to mobilize more for presidential elections than state and local ones.

But these newly energized activists say they are well aware of the hurdles. They hope to avoid them by remaining engaged beyond the presidential level and becoming well versed in the minutiae of the democratic and political processes.

“We’re not in a position anymore where people of mild intelligence and reasonable interest in the political system . . . can just read the newspaper and vote and be done, figuring the people in charge will just take care of things,” said Elizabeth Juviler, a commercial real estate broker and head of a resistance group in the New Jersey suburbs of New York. “There is no one in power who can take care of it any better than any of our friends or neighbors could do it.”

So they send handwritten postcards to members of Congress, or cram into town hall meetings, or inundate them with phone calls to urge legislative action. Constituent pressure such as this led two Republican senators to abandon support for Trump’s education secretary nominee, who was confirmed only when Vice President Pence broke a Senate deadlock. It is also credited with leading a number of moderate Republicans to abandon support for the GOP replacement for the health-care law.

The Indivisible Project recently urged supporters to learn how to submit comments on proposed federal rules to roll back the Clean Air and Clean Water acts, an action meant to show a force of opposition as well as throw sand in the Environmental Protection Agency’s gears.

“At one extreme you have mass protest. At the other extreme you have very targeted electoral work,” said Beverly Gage, a Yale University history professor. “In between there is a huge political toolbox in this country, and probably if the movements are going to be effective, they are going to use all the tools and see which ones really work.”

One advantage for liberals is that an outsize proportion of the Democratic Party is made up of women, and women are particularly adept at local organizing, said Theda Skocpol, a Harvard University political-science professor who has studied the tea party movement, which gained a significant push from women.

...

But the challenges were on display, too. Some lamented that there aren’t more young people in the group, which leans heavily in the direction of retirees who are already active in Democratic organizations. Others grumbled that the Democratic Party’s failings paved the way for Trump’s victory.

And it didn’t take long for the Sanders-Clinton feuding to begin. Mike Callahan, 65, a retired consultant and a Sanders supporter, railed about Bill and Hillary Clinton’s Wall Street ties and what he saw as the Democratic establishment’s abandonment of working people.

“I get it. It’s all about the money for some people,” Susan Rooney, 59, a real estate agent, shot back. “No rights matter unless women’s rights are included. . . . Bernie Sanders, he’s not real strong on women’s issues.”

Tucker tried to get the neighbors to focus on their common ground. “It’s about unity,” she told them.

Someone asked whether it made sense to schedule a follow-up meeting in May.

“Yes!” Rooney said. “We were just getting something started here.”

We HAVE to hold it together. We can't let the Branch Trumpvidians get us down.

[GreyhoundFan]

"After a tight loss in Kansas, what’s a Democrat to do? Take on Koch and Trump, one garage sale at a time."

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WICHITA — Jan Manlove had posted advertisements on Craigslist and planted signs on street corners. “GARAGE SALE,” they read, which was true, just not the full truth, because she needed people to show up.

Now she was standing outside a garage crammed with items for sale, ringing up a couple buying a basket, a belt, two leaf-shaped plates and a children’s book, unaware that the money they were about to hand over would go to the Sedgwick County Democratic Women.

The club helps Democrats run for office in Kansas — or “Deep Red Kansas,” as Manlove, a 62-year-old retired Postal Service worker, often hears it called. Here, President Trump won by 20 points. The governor is a Republican. The mayor of Wichita is a Republican. The city’s most famous resident, Charles Koch, is a Republican mega-donor and a backer of the local congressman, Mike Pompeo, who Trump had recently picked to direct the CIA.

Two days before this garage sale, there was a special election to choose Pompeo’s replacement. A Republican won. But the election results showed that for the first time in more than two decades, Sedgwick County — home to Wichita, home to Koch Industries and home to Manlove — voted for the Democratic candidate, James Thompson, by two points. Here in Deep Red Kansas, there was suddenly a smidgen of blue.

And so the newly optimistic Democrats were on to the next step: raising money for future campaigns. Even before congressional seats open again in 2018, there are school board positions and city council jobs to fight for.

“Grass roots, we learned it from the Kochs,” Manlove had said. With that in mind, she smiled at the couple at her cash box and calculated what they owed. ­Twenty-five cents per plate, a dollar for the children’s book, “The Golden History of the World.” The total came to $4.20.

“This is a fundraiser, if you want to make it an even five,” Manlove told the husband, Ken Raney, no way of knowing that when Raney got home and saw that the first chapter of the book was about evolution, he would throw it in the trash.

“What’s it fundraising for?” Raney’s wife asked.

“For Sedgwick County Democratic Women,” Manlove answered.

Raney looked surprised. “Then definitely not,” he said, and as Manlove handed back his change, Raney began to explain that the only reason Democrats performed better than expected in the special election was because of the governor and his 27 percent approval rating. It had nothing to do with Trump, he said.

“Every time Trump talks, I vomit,” Manlove told him.

“That’s how I felt about Obama!” Raney said.

“Tell me why.”

“The guy was a liar.”

“What did he lie about?”

Raney’s wife interrupted: “I think it’s time to go. We’re on a date. This is not how I wanted to spend my date.”

Manlove watched them leave, wondering whether she was too mean as more customers wandered in, including a man who paused at the most expensive item at the garage sale: a dresser set priced at $400.

Manlove recognized him as the owner of a downtown antiques store, and she thought he might be one of the county’s 71,310 registered Democrats, rather than one of its 115,930 registered Republicans. “This is a fundraiser for the Sedgwick County Democratic Women,” she said, taking a chance.

“If you had told me that, I wouldn’t be here,” the man said, and then he made an offer.

“Three hundred dollars.”

“Three fifty,” came the counter from Deb Shepard, the owner of the dresser, who also was volunteering at the garage sale.

“Three hundred,” the man repeated.

The dresser had been sitting in a storage unit since Shepard’s father had died at the end of 2015. She had meant to sell it, but last year, instead of dealing with his affairs, she threw herself into pursuing a longtime dream: running for office.

“Going once,” the man said.

She ran as a Democrat for the Kansas state legislature. She built her own parade float. She spent her evenings and weekends knocking on doors.

“Twice . . .”

She lost by 24 points.

“Three times.”

So the dresser didn’t sell, but a plate with Dwight Eisenhower’s face on it did, and at the end of the first day of the three-day sale, the total was $958.

That evening, Manlove proudly reported the profits to the club members when they gathered for a monthly meeting at a buffet restaurant serving everything from chicken livers to Chinese food. None of them particularly liked the restaurant, but the banquet room fit all 38 members who showed up, and it was free to use, so here they were, surrounded by others who understood what it means to be a Democrat in Kansas:

“It’s like a cult almost,” one of them explained. “People are embarrassed to admit it.”

“We don’t talk about it to our families,” agreed 57-year-old Sherry Livingston, who recently peeled a “Sedgwick County Dems” bumper sticker off her car so she wouldn’t have to talk about it with her work clients, either. Most of the women here were in their 60s, 70s and even 80s — but none remembered a time when Democrats were not in the minority in Kansas.

Because of James Thompson, though, defeat was feeling as though it could turn to momentum, and 77-year-old club president Frances Jackson was determined to seize it. She knew that sometimes the best way to motivate people was to ask something of them, so after the Pledge of Allegiance and a presentation by an anthropologist about indigenous rights, she picked up a microphone and told the group, “I am saying to you, each one of you in this room: You can’t give up.”

She turned toward Livingston, who in 2014 had run for the state legislature and lost by 22 points. “I will be asking you again and again, Sherry, to run for office.”

Livingston smiled, and Jackson continued: “That will be the question I have for each one of you. What office are you running for?”

One woman told the group that her plan was to turn neighboring Kingman County, where Trump won 75 percent of the vote, “just a little bit purple.”

Another announced an upcoming training session on how to be a political candidate.

“We turned Sedgwick County blue,” another reminded the group. “So now we can even consider running for Sedgwick County Commission seats.”

Jackson took back the microphone and asked the women to applaud for those who spoke up.

“People say to me, ‘Oh, I can’t run for office,’ ” she said. “So I put both my hands on both their cheeks and I say: ‘Do you see who is president? Anybody can run for office.’ ”

The room filled with laughter, and applause broke out again.

On the second day of the garage sale, James Thompson was a few miles away, sitting in his pickup truck outside a storage rental facility and scrolling on his phone through another article about the election he had lost.

It said what he already knew: In an area Trump had won by 27 points, he had come within 7 points of becoming a congressman. Some were interpreting the results as a sign of Trump supporters feeling remorse. Others saw a Democratic Party that still couldn’t win over rural voters. Thompson kept scrolling until he came to a comment about Hillary Clinton: “After 46 years of voting Democrat, I did not support the Democratic candidate in 2016.” He shut off his phone and stepped out of his truck.

“It’s Hillary people blaming Bernie supporters, and Bernie supporters blaming Hillary,” he said. “It’s just like, ugh, for the love of God. This is why we’re not winning.”

...

Day Three at the garage sale, the final day, and there were hundreds of items left: lawn chairs and coffee pots, board games with missing pieces, and cheese knives shaped like fruits. The volunteers were tired of haggling. The forecast was calling for rain.

But coming up the driveway were three more customers. All of them were Democrats, and all had met last year when they were running for office.

“I played to win, but I knew I was going to lose,” said Tony Hunter, who ran for state Senate and lost by 33 points to a Republican whose campaign outspent his 14 to 1.

“I developed a thick skin,” said Clifton Beck, who ran for the state House with a campaign fund of $575, $100 of it from his wife.

“I did better than anyone thought I would,” said Susan Osborne, who in her campaign for the state House carried her Shih Tzu-bichon mix door to door, hoping Republicans would want to pet him.

The three of them rummaged through what remained and purchased two storage boxes, two paperback books and one “80’s Replay” CD for a total of $11.

“Twelve dollars in checks,” Manlove said, counting what was in the cash box as the garage sale neared its final moments. “$34 in ones . . .”

She remembered the $200 of her own money she’d placed in the box on the sale’s first day, to make change, and decided to leave it. “For the stuff I took home,” she said.

Frances Jackson, the club president, stopped calculating how much she owed for her purchases and wrote a check for $250.

“If we lose,” she said, thinking of the people she had been encouraging to run for office, “I don’t want it to be because we don’t have any money.”

Deb Shepard, the owner of the dresser set, which soon would be headed to her spare bedroom, decided to buy something, too: an old boombox they had been using to play a James Taylor CD. She handed over $20, and with that, the sale came to an end.

Manlove closed the cash box and carried it to her car. At the club’s next meeting, she would get to announce the total: $1,775.44. That would surely prompt long, loud applause. Then, the Sedgwick County Democratic Women would strategize about what to do next.

I hope there are more Jan Manloves out there.

[sawasdee]

This article isn't about resistance, but it is about signs of hope. It brings together the results of a range of polls on various political positions, from the ACA to the Environment to Education. And I found the results very cheering!

https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/5/22/15672530/opinion-polls-liberal-immigration-trade-role-government-aca

[RoseWilder]

Fantastic news for the Democrats: 

 

[formergothardite]

We just need to keep the momentum going and keep flipping seats!

[RoseWilder]

Another Democrat won a seat in a heavily Republican districtd: 

http://www.palmerreport.com/politics/democrat-christine-pellegrino/3035/

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For the second time in a span of hours, the Democratic Party has pulled off a victory in a special election that didn’t initially look to be winnable. Earlier this evening, we reported that Democrat Edie DesMarais had won the race for New Hampshire state legislature in a district that had never been won by a Democrat before. And just now, Democratic candidate Christine Pellegrino has been named the winner in a New York state assembly race where she’d been given virtually no chance.

ETA: It's important to note here that both of the elections that Democrats won yesterday, happened in districts that Trump won easily. 

[Flossie]

47 minutes ago, RoseWilder said:

ETA: It's important to note here that both of the elections that Democrats won yesterday, happened in districts that Trump won easily. 

[fraurosena]

Wanna bet there will be more and more Repubs in the House and Senate suddenly dropping their support for the WH?

[GreyhoundFan]

16 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

Wanna bet there will be more and more Repubs in the House and Senate suddenly dropping their support for the WH?

Oh please, oh please, oh please...

I think the real litmus test is going to be the GA and MT special elections (to fill Tom Price and Ryan Zinke's seats).

[GreyhoundFan]

A positive note here in VA: "Women in the running: Number of female candidates for Va. House has jumped"

Spoiler

RICHMOND — Kelly Fowler’s daughter was born the day Barack Obama was inaugurated in 2009, but this year’s birthday was a downer. Fowler and her daughter, Tessa Anne, had been enthusiastic Hillary Clinton supporters, and they couldn’t bear to see President Trump sworn in on her big day.

So Fowler took her little girl to the Women’s March in Washington to salvage their spirits. And in the process, she decided something about herself: She was going to run for office.

Fowler is now seeking to become the Democratic candidate for her House of Delegates race in Virginia Beach, where she will go up against Republican incumbent Ron Villanueva, who also faces a primary challenger, in House District 21.

That makes Fowler part of a wave of female candidates in this year’s elections for 100 House seats.

With primary elections coming on June 13, 61 women are seeking a seat in the Virginia legislature — about 30 percent of the field.

The overall crop of 206 candidates is far bigger than usual, and the number of women may be a record. The 50 women running as Democrats are the most for that party in at least a decade and probably ever — up from 27 who filed in 2015, according to the state party. Republicans are fielding 10 female candidates, and one woman is running as an independent.

“I think what you’re seeing here is the Trump effect,” said Stephen Farnsworth, a political scientist at the University of Mary Washington and a longtime Virginia election watcher who said he can’t remember seeing so many women on the ballot. “There are so many people frustrated in Virginia with Trump, and that’s generating a lot more candidates as well as more women candidates than we’ve seen in recent cycles.”

In a recent poll by The Washington Post and the Schar School at George Mason University, only 36 percent of Virginia residents said they approve of Trump’s performance as president. Among women, the results were even worse — 29 percent said they approve of Trump and only 17 percent said they strongly approve. Two-thirds of women said they disapprove, and 61 percent strongly disapprove.

Partly as a result, women’s issues have featured prominently in this year’s race for the Democratic nomination for governor. Both of the party’s candidates — Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam and former congressman Tom Perriello — have campaigned on promising to be a “brick wall” against attempts by Trump or the Republican-controlled state legislature to roll back access to abortion or otherwise restrict women’s health issues.

But it’s the outpouring of interest from female candidates that best captures the spirit of the moment, said Stephanie Schriock, president of the women’s political group Emily’s List.

“I think there’s been a real empowerment of women to step up and want their voices heard in all aspects of society, and that particularly means elective office,” Schriock said. “There are many reasons — one clearly is the election of Donald Trump and what that means to a lot of women in their gut who say, ‘Wait a minute, if that can happen, I’ve got to take charge and get involved myself.’ ”

Emily’s List waded into the Virginia races Tuesday, endorsing Fowler and six other House candidates, including Danica Roem in House District 13 in Prince William County. She would be the first transgender person elected to the General Assembly. All of the seven are Democrats.

The national group, which also has endorsed Susan Platt for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor, promises to bring attention and fundraising power to their campaigns. The others on their slate are Hala Ayala in HD51 in Prince William; Jennifer Carroll Foy in HD2 in Prince William; Wendy Gooditis in HD10 in Loudoun; Kathleen Murphy in HD34 in Fairfax; and Cheryl Turpin in HD85 in Virginia Beach.

Of the 61 women running for office in the Virginia House primaries, 12 are Democratic incumbents and four are Republican incumbents.

Many Virginia incumbents go years without challengers, and as districts have become more polarized, Democrats have sometimes struggled to field challengers in very red parts of the state. Not this year, though: All but 16 House races feature candidates from both parties, and women account for more than half of all challengers seeking seats held by Republicans.

At least four contested races feature only women, but that number could rise once the general election candidates are selected. And there were actually five more women candidates who have already been winnowed out in districts that used a nominating process.

“The Trump effect might have been a good thing in the long run,” Fowler said. “Everyone is awake and paying attention and taking a stand.”

But even with the surge of interest from women, Virginia still has a long way to go for gender parity in the state legislature. There were 17 women among the 100 members of the House of Delegates in the most recent session. Factoring in the Senate, which is not up for reelection this year and features 10 women among its 40 members, Virginia’s General Assembly is about 19 percent female.

That’s below this year’s average of about 25 percent for statehouses across the country, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Vermont, Nevada, Colorado and Arizona all lead the way with legislatures that are about 39 percent women.

Of course, women make up more than half of the population they represent.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"No, the ‘resistance’ isn’t failing at the voting booth. Here’s where it’s winning."

Spoiler

Elections produce winners and losers. There are no bonus points for participation. Democrats have been frustrated by losses in high-profile congressional races — Rob Quist bested by Greg Gianforte in Montana and James Thompson falling short to Ron Estes in deep-red Kansas. In both elections, the Democratic nominees outperformed previous Democratic showings but came up short. In the nationally publicized special election in Georgia to fill the seat of Republican Tom Price, the Democratic candidate, Jon Ossoff, is still locked in a dead heat. This leads pundits and many Democrats to wonder: Is the “resistance” to President Trump a dud at the polling booth?

Before the garment-rending and hand-wringing go too far, Democrats and pundits would do well to focus their eyes a little lower on the ballot. In special elections for state and local offices, progressive insurgents aren’t just coming close — they are winning and sending a message to the establishment of both parties.

In the 9th state assembly district of Long Island, Christine Pellegrino — a schoolteacher, union activist, Bernie Sanders delegate and Working Families Party Democrat — dispatched her Republican opponent by a stunning 58 percent to 42 percent. As Newsday reported, this is usually a district where Democrats hardly compete. Trump swamped Hillary Clinton here by 23 percentage points. The veteran Republican state legislator who held the seat was reelected by a 37-point margin over a Democratic challenger. But when he stepped down, Pellegrino — a first-time candidate — swept to victory.

In New Hampshire, Edith DesMarais pulled a similar upset in a state legislative race. “Republicans should absolutely be concerned,” William F.B. O’Reilly, a Republican partner in the November Team, a political consulting firm, told the New York Times. “Two Republican canaries died in the coal mine yesterday.”

Progressive candidates are rising in Democratic primaries in Democratic areas as well. In the primary for Philadelphia district attorney, civil rights attorney Larry Krasner, who has defended Occupy Philadelphia and Black Lives Matter protesters, won on a platform calling for an end to mass incarceration, police reform and more. Supported by Sanders and a range of progressive groups, his candidacy was also bolstered by the money of George Soros. “This changes the game across the country,” William Cobb of the American Civil Liberties Union told Philadelphia Magazine.

In the Democratic primary for mayor in Jackson, Miss., victory went to Chokwe Antar Lumumba, running on a bold program calling for a “people’s administration” that would feature police reform and a locally grounded, cooperative strategy for economic development. Lumumba marched in solidarity with black auto-plant workers at the March on Mississippi with Sanders and the UAW and helped to found the Mississippi Human Rights Collective that led efforts to remove the Confederate insignia from the state’s flag. His victory was one of many for progressives in Democratic primaries.

Clearly the populist energy generated by the Sanders campaign and the Trump resistance has electoral power. Democrats — particularly the so-called Obama Coalition — have been notorious no-shows in by-elections and special elections. Now they are turning out in larger numbers, while Republican turnout is at question. As Republican consultant O’Reilly put it: “Special elections are a great measure of voter intensity. These are low-turnout affairs where the most motivated voters turn out. Trump voters and other Republicans simply didn’t show up, and voters from the left did.” In the high-visibility races with national attention, Republican and Democratic money floods in, turning the elections into high-stakes showdowns. Special elections outside that spotlight may well be a more accurate gauge of voter intensity.

Also notable in these victories is the growing infrastructure of progressive groups engaged in supporting transformative candidates. Our Revolution, an offshoot of the Sanders campaign, isn’t alone in the field. Working Families Party, MoveOn.org and many other groups all raise money, volunteers and attention for progressive champions.

These candidates are not your standard Democrats. Like Sanders, they are campaigning for bold change. They pledge an end to corruption. They support aggressive public action for working people — $15 minimum wage, investment in infrastructure, renewal of public education and making public college tuition free. This is now increasingly reflected at the national level as well, with Democratic legislators coming out for a $15 minimum wage, a major infrastructure jobs agenda and progressive tax reform.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the insurgency’s death are premature. In reality, it has just begun to build. Activists continue to flood Republican town meetings. GOP health-care and budget plans generate ever-greater opposition. Democrats’ victories at the state and local level may well augur what is yet to come.

Democrats start from a very deep hole, having lost more than 900 state legislative seats over the past eight years, leaving Republicans in complete control of 23 states. With Trump in the White House and the right dominating Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, capital-D and small-d democrats have every reason to despair. The Democratic Party apparatus still seems hidebound and timid. But the resistance is real. And the demand for fundamental change sparked by the Sanders insurgency is still building inside and outside the Democratic Party. Republicans are entrenched, backed by big money and a sophisticated right-wing infrastructure. But progressives are mobilized and just may be turning from protest to power.

This gives me a little hope.

[fraurosena]

Love this:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Crowds rally at March for Truth in D.C. and dozens of cities"

Spoiler

More than a thousand people gathered near the Washington Monument Saturday to rally at the March for Truth, calling for an independent investigation into alleged collusion between Russia and President Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Organizers also used the occasion to celebrate the “resistance” movement against the Trump administration, and implored the crowd to stay involved for the long haul.

“We gotta keep up the fight, that’s all there is to it,” said Jon Lovett, a former President Obama speechwriter and popular podcast host, who spoke at the D.C. rally.

Thousands more protested in more than 100 cities across the country, including New York, Pittsburgh and Chicago.

The chants at the D.C. march were clever and cumbersome, taking wonky and specific aim at what the protesters believe have been White House attempts to cover up its connections with the Russian government.

“The Rosenstein memo was phony, we want testimony from Comey!” the protestors chanted, criticizing President Trump decision to fire the director of the FBI after receiving a recommendation from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

“That firing was abrupt, what are you covering up?” another chant went.

Most people at the March for Truth in Washington traveled from D.C. and the surrounding suburbs, but a handful made an overnight trek from farther states.

“I wanted to be part of the crowd, to make it larger and make a statement,” said Odell Buggs, a 53-year-old small business owner who traveled from Rochester New York with her two sisters. She also drove to nation’s capital for the Women’s March, Tax March and Climate March. “Because if you make a statement in D.C., you make a statement to the whole country.”

Earlier in the day, a much smaller counter protest in support of Trump unfolded in front of the White House, where dozens gathered to applaud the president’s controversial decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate agreement.

The organizers of that rally —the Fairfax County GOP and the Republican Party of Virginia —dubbed the gathering the “Pittsburgh not Paris” rally, borrowing a line from Trump’s speech on Thursday announcing the withdrawal in which he said, “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh not Paris.”

Rally goers carried red and white “Make America Great” and blue and white “Promises Made Promises Kept” signs.

Bert Gagnon, a retired NASA employee from Mechanicsville, Md., said he came to Lafayette Square to show support for Trump. He said he’d do the same if Obama was still in office. There’s too much partisanship, he said, adding that what matters is putting America first.

He agreed with Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the climate agreement saying the country’s leaders need to focus more on problems at home – like the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. He agrees that the world is warming, but that it’s not man, but nature that’s affecting the weather

Christi Branch, from Waynesboro, Va., said she made the last minute trip to the nation’s capital to show her support for Trump. “I’m just wanted to be here to support my president and the promises made and the promises he kept,” she said.

Nearby another group gathered to blast Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris accord. Speakers urged attendees not to be discouraged by the president’s decision, urging them to stay active and even consider running for office. One gentleman carried a sign that said “Pittsburgh and Paris.”

But it was the March for Truth that drew the biggest crowds of the day. In addition to Lovett, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md) and activist Linda Sarsour were also among the speakers. The participants carried signs that called for Trump’s impeachment and depicted Trump as a puppet being controlled by Russian President Vladi­mir Putin. Other signs were more cheeky, including one that said “Super Callous Fascist Racist Extra Braggadocious.”

In his speech, Raskin listed some of Trump’s advisors and staffers —Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, and Michael Flynn —and detailed their alleged connections to Russia.

“We don’t know all the facts yet, but we know this much,” Raskin said. “Donald Trump has a staff infection and it’s spreading everyday.”

Sarsour said she agreed with the call for an impartial investigation into alleged Russian connections, but implored the protesters not to let Russia distract them from other issues like healthcare and civil rights.

“The people are woke, we are woke,” said Sarsour, a co-chair of the massive Women’s March that was held on the Mall the day after Trump’s inauguration. “We will not go back to sleep.”

For many in the crowd, this was just the latest in a string of anti-Trump protests to unfold on the National Mall. Protesters said they have attended every big protest since Trump’s election —the Women’s March, Tax March, March for Science and more —and have no plans on stopping.

“I’ve been outraged ever since the election,” said Lee Adams, a retired 69 year-old Bethesda resident who has been to multiple protests in 2017 and carried a sign that said “Nasty men and women won’t quit until Trump does” on one side.

“The fact that this man could be president for four years scares me to death,” he said.

I so wish I could have gone to the event at the Washington Monument.

[sawasdee]

19 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

“Super Callous Fascist Racist Extra Braggadocious.”

I love it!

But I wish the numbers had been larger.

[nvmbr02]

5 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Crowds rally at March for Truth in D.C. and dozens of cities"

I so wish I could have gone to the event at the Washington Monument.

I wish I could have gone to any of the events anywhere. Nothing on island here, and plane tickets are way too expensive $$. IF he is still in office when we are done with our time here I will be ready to march for something! We wont be back before 2018. but we will be home for the lead up to the 2020 elections and we are more than ready to join the fight.

5 hours ago, sawasdee said:

I love it!

But I wish the numbers had been larger.

Me too. But at least they were larger than the crowd that showed up for rally praising the Paris agreement pull out. 

[AmazonGrace]

When you're too racist for Breitbart: 

http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/05/media/breitbart-katie-mchugh/index.html

Quote

 

Katie McHugh, the Breitbart writer who tweeted a number of incendiary remarks in the immediate aftermath of the London terror attack, is no longer with the right-wing news site, four sources familiar with the situation told CNN.

Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow announced McHugh's departure internally Monday morning.

McHugh had ignited controversy on Saturday night when she wrote on Twitter that "there would be no deadly terror attacks in the U.K. if Muslims didn't live there."

"You're a real moron," actor Pej Vahdat replied.

"You're an Indian," shot back McHugh, incorrectly identifying the ethnicity of Vahdat, who is Iranian-American.

Related: Breitbart employees infuriated by colleagues' 'appalling' comments after London terror attack

McHugh's comments prompted outrage from a number of her own colleagues. Breitbart employees who spoke to CNN Sunday characterized McHugh's remarks as "appalling," "terrible," and "dumb."

McHugh has a history of posting racially tinged remarks on social media. She once tweeted, "Mexicans wrecked Mexico & think invading the USA will magically cure them them of their retarded dysfunction. LOL." In other tweets, she was disparaging of other cultures and said, for example, "another Crusade would do a lot of good."

 

 

[onekidanddone]

1 hour ago, AmazonGrace said:

When you're too racist for Breitbart: 

http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/05/media/breitbart-katie-mchugh/index.html

 

What kind of freaky backwards universe is going on?  Iinfuriated"? "Appalling"?  This rag has been pimping hate since it was started. Her comments are what Breibart is all about, so no, their mock outrage is BS.

[GreyhoundFan]

Guess who is hurting due to boycotts? "Breitbart News seems to be cleaning house after readers and advertisers drift away"

Spoiler

The clarion of the far right seems to be having second thoughts about how far right it wants to go.

Faced with an advertiser boycott and plummeting readership, Breitbart News has lately been trimming back some of its more extreme elements in what may be a bid for more mainstream respectability.

Gone: Prominently displayed stories appealing to overt racial prejudice, such as reports and essays about crimes committed by African Americans. Articles such as “Five Devastating Facts About Black-on-Black Crime” and “Black-on-Black Crime: Blame it on the System and Ignore the Evidence” have all but disappeared from the site.

Gone: Reporter Katie McHugh, who was fired by Breitbart on Monday for tweeting after the latest terrorist attack in London, “There would be no terror attacks in the U.K. if Muslims didn’t live there.” McHugh doubled down on the vitriol when an Iranian American, actor Pej Vahdat, called her “a real moron.” In reply, she tweeted, “You’re an Indian,” then deleted it.

Long gone: Milo Yiannopoulos, once Breitbart’s biggest star and a magnet for accusations that the site promoted misogyny, white ethno-nationalism and demonization of immigrants. Yiannopoulos was forced out in February amid exposure of videos in which he spoke favorably about pedophilia.

Delayed: Breitbart’s long-touted plans to expand to France and Germany. The company disclosed Euro-expansion plans last year, but has little to show for it so far.

Breitbart hitched itself to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign last year and reaped an enormous spike in reader traffic and media attention. Its former chairman, Stephen K. Bannon — who once declared Breitbart “the platform of the alt-right” — became Trump’s campaign chairman and later his chief White House strategist.

But the postelection period hasn’t been very kind to Breitbart.

The site’s visitor traffic has fallen 53 percent since November, from 22.96 million unique individuals to 10.76 million last month, according to ComScore, which tracks Web trends. Other news sites have seen a falloff since the election, too — The Washington Post and the New York Times are off 24 and 26 percent during this period, respectively — but Breitbart’s losses are at roughly twice the mainstream rate.

At the same time, an advertiser blacklist of Breitbart organized by an anonymous online group called Sleeping Giants appears to be biting hard. Only 26 companies had ads on Breitbart last month, down from 242 in March, according to the marketing-news site Digiday. It said the remaining advertisers were primarily smaller direct-response companies, although Amazon.com remains one of its sponsors, despite pressure from its employees to cut ties to the site (Amazon’s chief executive is Jeffrey P. Bezos, who owns The Post).

The traffic and advertiser losses may be compelling a move toward a kinder, gentler Breitbart, says Will Sommer, who tracks conservative media in his newsletter Right Richter.

“Breitbart has never been under more pressure than it is now, trying to establish itself as the premiere right-wing outlet even as liberal boycott threats have cost it hundreds of advertisers,” Sommer wrote, adding, “So now, any staffer who hurts Breitbart’s request for respectability (and advertisers) can expect to be fired.”

Sommer said it would be difficult to imagine Breitbart firing McHugh for the same tweets a few years ago.

Breitbart declined to address specifics of McHugh’s firing and would not comment on its editorial direction. But the media organization said in a statement: “The assault on Breitbart is part of a larger effort by the Left to attack conservative media by unjustifiably affixing derogatory labels to any voice that threatens its ideological agenda. Breitbart is the leading conservative, pro-family website in America.”

It said its traffic has increased 59 percent on a year-to-year basis and that it ranks No. 60 among U.S.-based websites, according to the Alexa web-tracking firm. “Hence the liberal hysteria,” it said. “Last year, Breitbart started millions of conversations about populist values and now many of those values are becoming policy for the United States.”

On the other hand, McHugh’s firing showed some of the downside risk for a site that has attracted some of the more extreme elements of the alt-right. (“Alt-right” is an ill-defined term that can refer to antiglobalist, anti-establishment views, but also refers to a far-right movement whose followers hold racist, anti-Semitic and sexist beliefs and who desire a whites-only state.)

The firing prompted alt-right media figures such as Mike Cernovich to attack Breitbart. He tweeted in support of McHugh’s effort to raise funds online for medical bills and said, “Breitbart fired a journalist to appease fake news media.” Others, enraged by the firing, called Breitbart a “cuck,” or cuckold, an alt-right slur for those who betray the faith. Fiery conservative Ann Coulter, a Breitbart columnist, declined to bite a friendly hand: “Whatever the reason for the firing, Katie McHugh is a great journalist,” she tweeted.

Breitbart revealed in February that it is part owned by a billionaire investor, conservative political donor Robert Mercer, so the economic impact of a prolonged advertiser boycott is unlikely to be debilitating. It also is cushioned by its sales of Breitbart-branded merchandise, such as T-shirts and a coffee mug emblazoned with its logo and the word “covfefe,” a reference to President Trump’s recent Twitter gaffe.

On another front, Breitbart has fought a so-far losing battle to secure a bit of Washington prestige: press credentials to cover Congress.

The site’s application for permanent credentials has been rejected repeatedly by the committee of journalists that has long been in charge of determining official accreditation.

The committee’s official rejection has nothing to do with Breitbart’s editorial thrust; rather, it wants to ensure that the site is free of conflicts of interest, particularly its relationship with Bannon and its overlapping ownership and editorial leadership with a Florida foundation Bannon co-founded, the Government Accountability Institute.

It has also expressed concern that an Egyptian businessman and political figure, Moustafa el-Gindy, rented his Capitol Hill townhouse to Breitbart for its Washington headquarters at below-market rates in exchange for favorable coverage.

On Monday, lawyer Laurence Levy of the Greenberg Traurig firm put the credentials committee on notice that Breitbart had hired him to press its case. Breitbart “is entitled to permanent Credentials, and will continue to pursue permanent Credentials,” Levy wrote.

The White House ethics office last week issued a waiver to Bannon entitling him to communicate with editors and reporters at Breitbart, dismissing a complaint by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a liberal group. However, the waiver was undated, the New York Times reported, raising questions about whether it had been improperly backdated to cover prohibited contacts.

Looks like Sleeping Giants has really had an effect! Of course, since the Mercers are still backing Bretibart, they have money to operate.

[VixenToast]

On 4/27/2017 at 1:56 PM, GreyhoundFan said:

"‘We have to take a stand’: Mormon history scholars file brief against Trump travel ban"

I found the article interesting. To be honest, I know very little about the Mormon migration and situation in the early days.

Weeeeeeeeell, it certainly wouldn't surprise me me. One of my ancestors from 1830s-1840s Illinois was killed somehow, and his friggin epitaph was: KILLED BY THE MORMONS.

[fraurosena]

Isn't this just the best way to resist? 

Maryland attorney general Frosh awarded expanded power to sue Trump administration

Spoiler

Democratic state lawmakers on Wednesday gave Maryland's attorney general broad authority to bypass the governor and sue the federal government on a range of issues, an unprecedented expansion of power for the office. The action allows Democratic Attorney General Brian E. Frosh to challenge the administration of Republican President Donald J. Trump without first obtaining approval from Republican Gov. Larry Hogan or the Democrat-led General Assembly.

Lawmakers, spurred by what they say is the unique threat posed by Trump, are now weighing whether to give Frosh's office an additional $1 million a year and five more attorneys to fight the federal government.

Other Democrat-controlled states have mounted legal challenges to Trump's executive orders, including the ban on visitors from seven predominantly Muslim countries. Washington state successfully halted that ban with a lawsuit this month.

Before Trump's inauguration last month, California hired former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to challenge the federal government for $25,000 a month.

The Maryland General Assembly moved in less than two weeks to expand the authority of the state's top lawyer for the first time since 1864, when the job was re-established in the Maryland Constitution.

The legislature used its constitutional authority to direct the attorney general to grant blanket approval to sue the federal government at the attorney general's discretion on a wide range of issues.

"In these uncertain times, I think it's important for us to be armed and ready to respond," said Frosh, a former state senator who spent 28 years in the legislature before becoming attorney general in 2015.

Addressing lawmakers Wednesday, he said "I really hope we don't have to use the authority you all granted us."

The action is not subject to a veto by the governor.

[...]

Until Wednesday, the governor and General Assembly reserved the right to decide when to sue the federal government. Maryland was one of nine states that did not grant autonomy to the attorney general through common law.

[...]

Maryland lawmakers said they modeled the proposal to give Frosh more resources and attorneys after the size and scope Pruitt's five-attorney unit. That proposal, if enacted, would not take effect until July 2018.

In the meantime, Frosh said he would use existing resources in his agency's $30 million budget to evaluate potential lawsuits against the federal government. Already, he said, lawyers with other responsibilities are taking on extra assignments to research the constitutionality of some of Trump's executive orders.

The joint resolution allows Frosh to initiate a lawsuit against the government for a long list of action or inaction that the attorney general deems an infringement of Marylanders' rights to health care, civil liberties, economic security, environment, immigration or international travel.

It took effect Wednesday afternoon after Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller and House Speaker Michael E. Busch, both Democrats, signed the resolution.

While putting his pen to the resolution, Busch quipped, "This is my Donald Trump moment."