Horsfield’s tarsier (Cephalopachus bancanus), also known as the western tarsier, is the only species of tarsier in the genus Cephalopachus. It occurs on Borneo, Sumatra and nearby islands and is, like other members of the group, entirely nocturnal.
Horsfield’s tarsier is a nocturnal species. It sleeps alone during the day in a tangle of vines or creepers at a height of 3.5 to 5 meters. This species prefers to sleep, rest, or remain stationary on perches that are angled 5 degrees from the vertical tree trunks, 1 to 4 cm in diameter,and it sleeps solitarily. Before sunset, Horsfield’s tarsier will wake up and wait 10 to 20 minutes before moving around the understory and spending 1.5 to 2 hours of the night foraging for food.Horsfield’s tarsier can be found from ground level up to a height of 7m or more in the understory.
This species is carnivorous. It mainly eats insects such as beetles, grasshoppers, katydids, cockroaches, butterflies, moths, praying mantis, ants, phasmids, and cicadas, but also will eat small vertebrates such as bats (Chiroptera) including members of the genus Taphozous, the lesser short-nosed fruit bat (Cynopterus brachyotis), and the spotted-winged fruit bat (Balionycteris maculata),and snakes, of which poisonous snakes have been found to be consumed. For example, the poisonous snake Maticora intestinalis was found to be hunted for by this species. This species was also found to consume birds, including: spiderhunters, warblers, kingfishers, and pittas. It locates prey primarily by sound and catches the prey with its hands when foraging. The prey items get killed by bites to the back of the neck and the eyes are shut when attacking. It will consume the prey starting with the head and working its way down the body. This species gets water both by drinking from a pool or stream, and by licking drops from bamboo leaves or from trunks of trees when water is running down the bark. Horsfield’s tarsier is a host of the acanthocephalan intestinal parasite Moniliformis tarsii.
Horsfield’s tarsier, like all tarsiers, is a vertical clinger and leaper known for its extraordinary leaping abilities. An individual will mainly support itself with its feet and the tail exerts enough force to hold the individual in place without using the hands much because of the pads located on the feet. Except when resting, the hands are usually placed no higher than its nose.The hands are only placed higher up to maintain the position of the individual.Other modes of locomotion used by the species include climbing, quadrupedal walking, hopping and “cantilevering.”
The animal kingdom is this earth’s most precious gift. If only we were better at taking care of it.
The media is happy to help the Republicans stigmatize stroke recovery, hinting broadly over and over again, that John Fetterman has some kind of cognitive deficiency that calls into question his ability to serve simply because he uses an auditory aid during his recovery.
Meanwhile, this is fine:
Confronting a barrage of accusations about his personal life — including claims he threatened women and paid for an abortion despite his public opposition to the procedure — Herschel Walker has repeatedly invoked his history of mental illness in his defense.
“As everyone knows, I had a real battle with mental health, even wrote a book about it,” Mr. Walker, the Republican candidate for Senate in Georgia, said in a television ad released at the height of the abortion controversy. “And by the grace of God, I’ve overcome it.”
In the ad, and on the campaign trail, Mr. Walker, a former football star, does not elaborate. But in his 2008 memoir, “Breaking Free,” he revealed that he had been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, formerly known as multiple personality disorder. He described his 12 “alters” — distinct identities that helped him cope with the trauma of being bullied as a child. He wrote of rage and “out-of-control behavior”; he played Russian roulette with a loaded gun.
Now, as he tries to steady a campaign that could determine control of the Senate, Mr. Walker often speaks of these events in religious, not medical, terms. He either denies the accusations or says he does not remember what happened. Still, he casts himself as a redemption story, saying he is a Christian “saved by grace.”
But experts say Mr. Walker’s assertion that he has “overcome” the disorder is simplistic at best: Like other mental illnesses, dissociative identity disorder cannot be cured in the classic sense. Psychiatrists say that while patients can learn to manage this disorder — and even live symptom-free for extended periods — the symptoms can recur, often triggered by stress.
“You can get better,” said Dr. David Spiegel, a Stanford University psychiatry professor who studies and treats dissociative identity disorder. “But it doesn’t just evaporate.”
Dr. Spiegel and other experts interviewed for this article have not treated Mr. Walker and could not speak to the specifics of his case.
Mr. Walker’s retelling does not account for other complicating details. Experts say the disorder does not cause violent behavior. Some of the episodes — including an ex-girlfriend’s accusation that he had threatened her — took place after Mr. Walker claimed to have his disorder under control.
The Walker campaign did not respond this week to questions about his health history and has not released his medical records.
Last Friday night, during a debate with his Democratic opponent, Senator Raphael Warnock, Mr. Walker said he no longer needed treatment: “I continue to get help if I need help, but I don’t need any help. I’m doing well.”
Why isn’t the media harassing Walker to release his medical records? He admits that he has a history of mental illness and it’s quite serious. He held a gun to his former wife’s head. He had his minions play russian roulette. And he played football for many years which we know can result in concussions and brain damage.
John Fetterman is being dogged by the media every day to be “more transparent” and release more and more of his medical records beyond his GP. They want to see his x-rays, a report from his neurologist, his speech pathologist and more. The fact that he must temporarily use a device to fix his auditory communications problem as he recovers is constantly portrayed as a cognitive issue which it is not and which he demonstrates every time he speaks. Walker, on the other hand, is clearly cognitively impaired in some way. And yet, I don’t think I’ve heard of one reporter who has brought up the fact that he has a history of health problems and demanded more transparency.
Truss never had a popular mandate in the first place — fewer than 100,000 members of the Conservative Party backed her in the vote to succeed the buffoonish but cunning Boris Johnson — and made grievous political errors as well. On Wednesday, she and her aides so mishandled a routine vote in the Commons that there was pushing, shoving and pretty much a total meltdown in the Tory ranks.
In a larger sense, however, even if you leave aside her political ineptitude and her embrace of voodoo economics, Truss was in an impossible position. So was Johnson before her, and so will be her successor. The Conservative Party is in power because it embraced populism, which turns out to be a good way to win elections but an impossible way to govern.
In British politics these days, all roads lead back to Brexit. Like many in the Conservative Party, Truss originally opposed the idea of Britain leaving the European Union. But after voters narrowly voted for Brexit in 2016, she did what Johnson and many other Tories did and became a fervent Brexit supporter, bashing the E.U. and demanding that then-Prime Minister Theresa May move more quickly to finalize the divorce.
Today, none of the promised benefits of Brexit have materialized. In fact, Britain is having a harder time than E.U. countries in dealing with the economic shocks of the covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war. There are long lines at ports of entry that even stoic Britons find hard to endure. The country faces labor shortages, especially in areas such as agriculture and home health care — relatively low-paying jobs that used to be filled by workers from Poland, Romania and other E.U. countries.
Likewise, the Conservative Party decided to encourage populist anger about immigration. In April, Johnson’s government announced a deal to send refugees who seek asylum in Britain to faraway Rwanda instead. Truss appointed a home secretary, Suella Braverman, who not only supported the Rwanda plan but wanted to go much further and see legal immigration from all sources dramatically reduced. However, Braverman resigned Wednesday. She was ostensibly fired over a documents-handling controversy, but she might as well have leapt from a sinking ship. It’s unclear what the next administration’s immigration policy might be.
When you hear Republicans in this country say “secure the border” or “crack down on crime” or “America first,” keep in mind how easy it is to write a bumper sticker and how hard it is to actually govern in a complex, interconnected world. GOP leaders, pay attention: Britain’s Conservatives have pandered their way into ruin.
Unfortunately for us, we don’t have a parliamentary system that can quickly purge our leaders so when it becomes obvious here the country will just completely implode.
Also, I have to emphasize that Liz Truss’s program was pretty much right out of the 1980s Republican handbook and that ain’t populism. The GOP will very likely do exactly the same thing if they get their power back, even under Trump. After all, he’s one of the rich guys who will benefit. They will assume the markets won’t react the way they reacted in Britain because, well… just because. They believe in these fallacious economic principles because they have no alternative. And unlike the UK we don’t have any way out for at least two years. It will be a disaster.
And he left it in an unlocked storage locker at his beach club
Trump insists that he declassified all the documents found at Mar-a-Lago, possibly simply by declaring it under his breath one night while sitting on the toilet. If so, it’s awfully important to ask why he would have declassified something like this?
Some of the classified documents recovered by the FBI from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and private club included highly sensitive intelligence regarding Iran and China, according to people familiar with the matter. If shared with others, the people said, such information could expose intelligence-gathering methods that the United States wants to keep hidden from the world.
At least one of the documents seized by the FBI describes Iran’s missile program, according to these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe an ongoing investigation. Other documents described highly sensitive intelligence work aimed at China, they said.
Unauthorized disclosures of specific information in the documents would pose multiple risks, experts say. People aiding U.S. intelligence efforts could be endangered, and collection methods could be compromised. In addition, other countries or U.S. adversaries could retaliate against the United States for actions it has taken in secret.
The warrant authorizing the search of former president Donald Trump’s home said agents were seeking documents possessed in violation of the Espionage Act.
The secret documents about Iran and China are considered among the most sensitive the FBI has recovered to date in its investigation of Trump and his aides for possible mishandling of classified information, obstruction and destruction of government records, the people said.
The former president has denied wrongdoing in having the documents at Mar-a-Lago, claiming in a recent television interview that he declassified any documents in his possession, and that a president can declassify information “even by thinking about it.”
A Trump spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday morning.
Some of the most sensitive materials were recovered in the FBI’s court-approved search of Trump’s home on Aug. 8, in which agents seized about 13,000 documents, 103 of them classified and 18 of them top secret, according to court papers.
Those papers were the third batch of classified documents recovered in the course of the investigation. Boxes voluntarily sent from Mar-a-Lago to the National Archives and Records Administration earlier this year were found to contain 184 classified documents, 25 of which were marked top secret, according to court records. In June, Trump’s representatives responded to a subpoena by giving investigators 38 additional classified documents.
The Washington Post has previously reported that one of the documents seized in the FBI search described a foreign country’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities. The people discussing the case would not say if that intelligence related to Iran, China or some other nation. Iran’s missile program and nuclear capabilities are closely watched by the Western world; U.S. intelligence agencies believe Tehran is close to having enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon, but has not demonstrated the mastery of some technologies necessary to deploy such weapons, such as the ability to integrate a nuclear warhead with a long-range delivery system.
The people familiar with the matter said that many of the more sensitive documents Trump or his aides apparently took to Mar-a-Lago after he left the White House are top-level analysis papers that do not contain sources’ names. But even without individual identifiers, such documents can provide valuable clues to foreign adversaries about how the United States may be gathering intelligence, and from whom, the people said.
Some of the seized documents detail top-secret U.S. operations so closely guarded that many senior national security officials are not informed about them, The Post reported in September. Only the president, some members of his Cabinet or a near-Cabinet-level official could authorize government officials to know details of these special-access programs, people have said. Investigators conducting the Mar-a-Lago probe did not initially have the authority to review that material.
The new information about the documents obtained by The Post highlight what current and former intelligence officials say was the inherent risk posed by removing highly classified material from strictly guarded government buildings and keeping them in a private club filled with staffers, guests and visitors.
David Laufman, a former senior Justice Department official who handled cases involving mishandling of classified information, said the “exceptional sensitivity” of the material found at Mar-a-Lago will count as an aggravating factor as prosecutors weigh whether to file charges in the case.
“The exceptional sensitivity of these documents, and the reckless exposure of invaluable sources and methods of U.S. intelligence capabilities concerning these foreign adversaries, will certainly influence the Justice Department’s determination of whether to charge Mr. Trump or others with willful retention of national defense information under the Espionage Act,” Laufman said.
These may have been the items that were moved and then placed inside Trump’s residence at his direction. I wonder why?
It’s hard to see how they could decide not to prosecute him for this. Literally any other person in America would be and for much, much less.
A federal judge on Friday sentenced Stephen K. Bannon, a longtime adviser to former President Donald J. Trump who aided in the effort to overturn the 2020 election, to four months in prison for disobeying a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Mr. Bannon, 68, was found guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress this summer after Judge Carl J. Nichols rejected an array of arguments offered by Mr. Bannon’s defense team, including that he was protected from being compelled to testify by executive privilege.
Mr. Bannon will remain free pending his appeal.
The sentence, coming a year after Mr. Bannon was held in contempt by the House, is two months short of what federal prosecutors had requested this week. They had accused Mr. Bannon, the onetime editor of the right-wing news outlet Breitbart, of having “pursued a bad-faith strategy of defiance and contempt” from the moment he received the subpoena seeking information about his knowledge of Mr. Trump’s efforts to reverse his electoral defeat.
“Others must be deterred from committing similar crimes,” said Judge Nichols, a Trump appointee, who also imposed a fine of $6,500 on Mr. Bannon.
I doubt this will deter any of Trump’s minions, especially the ones with huge podcast followings. This makes Bannon a “political prisoner” and he revels in it.
Not that there’s any choice. He openly defied a subpoena and you’re just not allowed to do that. Not to mention that he’s getting off easy. He should have gone to jail for much longer for the fraud he perpetrated on Trump’s brain dead followers. He’s long overdue.
Jonathan V. Last of the Bulwark asked an interesting question in his column this week. He wondered, “[C]ould Mike Pence walk through the crowd at a Kari Lake or Doug Mastriano rally without security? On the other hand, what would happen to Mike Pence if he walked through the crowd at a Josh Shapiro or Mark Kelly rally? Would he need security?”
I think we know the answer, don’t we? There is only one crowd that literally tried to hang the former vice president and it isn’t the crowd who would gather for any Democrat. Pence is loathed by the MAGA base and if they happen to forget how much they hate him, Donald Trump will be sure to remind them every chance he gets.
That hasn’t stopped Pence from spending the last year laying the groundwork for a 2024 presidential run, giving speeches, laying out what he calls his “Freedom Agenda” and sounding like he’s working on his best George W. Bush impression and partying like it’s 2004. He seems to be under the strange impression that the Republican Party still likes him, and that its voters still believe in the outdated conservative movement of yesteryear. If you didn’t know better, you’d think he’d been in a coma for the last six years (which might explain the dazed look on his face visible throughout the Trump administration).
This week Pence gave a speech sponsored by the Heritage Foundation (where he is a “distinguished visiting fellow”) in which he caught the media’s attention by giving a coy answer when asked if he’d be willing to vote for Trump in 2024. He said, “Well, there might be somebody else I’d prefer more. I’ll keep you posted.” I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard Pence even trying to be funny. Humorless sanctimony is his brand.
It’s no secret that he intends to run so that really wasn’t the point of his speech. Pence kept referring to “our movement,” and while some might initially assume he meant Trump’s MAGA movement, that clearly wasn’t the idea. It was more like a throwback to Reaganism:
Our movement cannot forsake the foundational commitment that we have to security, to limited government, to liberty and to life. But nor can we allow our movement to be led astray by the siren song of unprincipled populism that’s unmoored from our oldest traditions and most cherished values. Let me say: This movement and the party that it animates must remain the movement of a strong national defense, limited government and traditional moral values and life.
His broadside against “unprincipled populism unmoored from our oldest traditions and most cherished values” is clearly aimed at his former boss. Maybe those old tropes will sound like a beloved ’80s soundtrack to a lot of Republicans who think that’s what they believe in, even if they’re clearly following a completely different ideology today. The conservative movement Pence speaks of in such glowing terms is dead — and he was instrumental in burying it.
When you read that passage and the rest of his speech, it’s as if Pence has forgotten that he stood stalwartly by Donald Trump’s side, gazing adoringly and endorsing every bit of incivility and “unprincipled populism” that gushed from the man’s mouth like a geyser of unbridled, self-serving, valueless malevolence. Pence sacrificed all integrity or dignity with his extravagant display of sycophancy. Take, for example, one infamous Cabinet meeting in December of 2017 when he was clocked giving no less that 14 paeans to Trump’s greatness. I’ll just pick a handful:
I’m deeply humbled, as your vice president, to be able to be here…. Because of your leadership, Mr. President, and because of the strong support of the leadership in the Congress of the United States, you’re delivering on that middle-class miracle… Mostly, Mr. President, I’ll end where I began and just tell you, I want to thank you, Mr. President. I want to thank you for speaking on behalf of and fighting every day for the forgotten men and women of America…. Because of your determination, because of your leadership, the forgotten men and women of America are forgotten no more. And we are making America great again.
“The Daily Show” did a famous bit sending up Pence’s adoring gaze
There was no more obsequious bootlicker in Donald Trump’s administration than Vice President Mike Pence, and that’s saying something.
Now, it’s fair to say that Jan. 6, 2021 and its aftermath have given Pence something of a reputation boost. He did the job every previous vice president has done, supervising the pro forma ritual of opening the envelopes of state-certified electoral votes, rather than trying to overturn the results and sparking an unprecedented constitutional crisis. Furthermore, Pence showed physical courage in refusing to leave the Capitol when it was overrun by insurrectionists. Democrats and others who still believe in democracy surely appreciate that. But let’s not kid ourselves that they’re likely to forget the four long years of submissive brown-nosing that came before it.
After all, Pence didn’t just do the right thing instinctively as any true patriot would have done — he didn’t just tell Trump “no way” and leave it at that. He had to consult with a bunch of people, including former Vice President Dan Quayle, to figure out whether it would be OK to stage a coup. Luckily, according to Robert Costa and Bob Woodward, Quayle said, “Mike, you have no flexibility on this. None. Zero. Forget it. Put it away,” and Pence finally agreed. That is not exactly the profile in courage he’s now portrayed as displaying.
Pence can do church-speak with the best of them. But if right-wing Christians have to choose between him and the Dear Leader who showed them the path to ending democracy, it’s no contest.
And even though Pence is an old-fashioned Christian conservative and can communicate in church-speak as well as anyone, it’s now been clearly established that the Christian right doesn’t really care about that. They love Donald Trump, the crotch-grabbing libertine who couldn’t name a Bible verse if his life depended on it. If it came down to a choice between the Dear Leader who offered them a pathway to power and the traitorous Mike Pence, who shattered their dreams of bringing down democracy, there is no doubt who they would choose.
So who, exactly, does Pence think is his constituency? Democrats wouldn’t attack him at a rally, and might even give him a pat on the back for his actions Jan. 6, but they certainly aren’t voting for him after his years-long display of unctuous groveling. Republicans won’t vote for him because he betrayed Trump, and the Never Trumpers aren’t likely to forgive him for betraying the GOP. I guess that leaves Liz Cheney and maybe a few members of the Bush and Romney families.
Mike Pence helped turn the GOP into what it is today and now finds himself a man without a party. He gets credit for not capitulating to fascism all the way, but his fate is richly deserved. He should start looking for some of those nice lucrative board seats and retire from public life. He’s cooked.
President Joe Biden Thursday at site of Fern Hollow Bridge construction, Pittsburgh.
Jesus resurrected Lazarus after four days. Conservative British Prime Minister Liz Truss resigned Thursday after her 44-day attempt at resurrecting Thatcherism failed. Dramatically, amid economic chaos. Anyone with a memory longer than the shelf life of a lettuce could have predicted that, and did.
On this side of the Pond on Thursday, President Biden was in Pittsburgh to celebrate how his $1 trillion infrastructure plan is helping to resurrect the Fern Hollow Bridge that collapsed in January:
“It’s being done in record time,” Mr. Biden said. “It normally takes two-to-five years to build a bridge like this, and the total project cost $25 million — fully paid for by the federal government.”
The result, he said, is a bridge that will be traversable “by Christmas, God willing.
“I’m coming back to walk across this sucker,” he said.
Democrats build things. Fix things.
“Republicans ain’t fixin’ shit,” said comic Trae Crowder on Thursday. “Help is not in their vocabulary.”
Columnist David Frum attributed the Truss’s rapid collapse to defects in the UK Tory party.
“The problem is that you’re not eligible for the captaincy unless you agree it was a brilliant idea to scupper the ship in 2016- and can convincingly act baffled why it has been sinking ever since,” Frum tweeted, referencing England’s exiting the European Union.
Let Thursday be an object lesson.
But it won’t be to Republicans. Anyone who believes a Republican Party handed control of Congress in 2023 will gaze on Liz Truss and be dissuaded from following her off the economic cliff has the I.Q. of that lettuce (Media Matters):
Many right-wing media figures on Fox News and Fox Business lauded Truss when she first came to power promising an unpopular libertarian economic policy vision. Perpetuallywrong right-wing economist Stephen Moore said on September 26, “I love what Liz Truss is doing in England, I think it’s exactly the right agenda. … It’s exactly what the United States should be doing.”
Days earlier, former Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow favorably compared Truss’ “terrific supply-side economic growth plan” to the Republican Party’s midterm policy agenda. Fox Business host Stuart Varney gushed, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if she were pointing the way for America?” He later said, “Liz Truss is doing economic policy right,” and “it’s just a shame we can’t copy” her tax cuts in the U.S.
Rarely is the question asked: Is our conservatives learning?
On Monday, I insisted Democrats spend more time touting their economic accomplishments than reacting to the vile spew from the right. If polling shows voters trust Republicans with the economy more than Democrats, maybe it is because Democrats are counting too heavily on Dobbs to get voters to the polls when many minds are on their budgets.
Finally, on Wednesday I spotted an ad bragging on Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. More, please.
After hearing Dear Leader cry “Witch hunt!” again and again during his White House tenure, the Children of the Con are now themselves hunting witches. They took his accusation as a directive.
PHOENIX — The report landed in the Arizona secretary of state’s online portal Monday night, around dinnertime. It contained an urgent message.
“There’s a group of people hanging out near the ballot dropbox filming and photographing my wife and I as we approached the dropbox and accusing us of being a mule,” said the report, which was written by a voter in the Phoenix suburbs and obtained by The Washington Post. “They took … photographs of our license plate and of us and then followed us out the parking lot in one of their cars continuing to film.”
The Guardian adds this background: “In Arizona, voters can only drop off ballots for themselves, people in their households or families, or people they’re providing care for. Other states don’t ban so-called ballot harvesting. The practice became illegal in Arizona in 2016.”
Voting by drop box is perfectly legal and non-suspicious. Except to these witch hunters:
It’s not enough to them that ballot harvesting is illegal. The drop box “monitors” have appointed themselves vigilante enforcers. And in doing so it appear they are engaging in something equally illegal: harassing voters.
We’ve seen it here in years past. A black man with a 15-passenger van ferrying black voters to the polls had his license tag photographed. His white harrassers accused him of doing something illegal. He didn’t stop. He must have taken hundreds to the polls. Someone else may not have persisted.
The Post again on events in Arizona:
By Wednesday, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D), who oversees elections here, referred the matter to the U.S. Justice Department and the Arizona attorney general. A spokesperson for the Justice Department confirmed on Thursday that it received the referral but declined to comment.
[…]
Though unobtrusive and few in number here, the drop boxes have become a symbol of mistrust in American elections among supporters of former president Donald Trump.
Trump and his allies nationally and in Arizona have urged supporters to monitor outdoor drop boxes, intended to serve as safe and convenient tools to deposit ballots.
A spokesperson for Arizona’s attorney general recommended voters who feel threatened should call the police.
If you’re looking for something positive to do during this last stretch of the campaign (aside from voting and getting out the vote) here it is. Howie Klein alerted Blue America members to a campaign that could really use a little cash in a race that Democrats would easily win if it weren’t for a trick on the ballot:
Pennsylvania Democrat Mike Doyle was first elected to Congress in 1994 and he’s retiring after the current session. His Pittsburgh district had an unassailable D+26 partisan lean and after the most recent redistricting, it is still strongly blue, with a D+15 lean. The Democratic candidate, state Rep. Summer Lee, is one of the best Democratic congressional candidates anywhere in the country— and one of the only ones to beat the concerted onslaught of Big Money from AIPAC and DMFI in the primary (over $3 million).
Yesterday, Ted Lieu called me from Pittsburgh, where he was campaigning for Summer and another progressive Democrat in the district next door, Chris Deluzio, to tell me that the GOP had just started dumping large sums of money into Summer’s race, smearing her and pushing their own weak candidate— a weak Trumpist candidate hiding his Republican affiliation who happens to be named… Mike Doyle.
The whole Doyle campaign is premised on trying to trick voters into thinking the Republican Doyle is the long-time Democratic congressman. Confusion is the name of their game. The real Congressman Doyle called a news conference last week and told reporters that “My name is on the ballot, but it’s not me. There is a gentleman with the same name as me who is running in the new 12th District, which is part of the old 18th District. That’s about the only thing we share in common is the same name. This is not meant to be a political announcement… I’m not telling people who to vote for, I merely think it’s the responsible thing to do, as a public service, to make sure they know who’s on the ballot and who isn’t. I just don’t think it would be right if people were marking their ballots based on the fact that they thought they were voting for me when I’m not on the ballot.”
But the problem is the outside money flooding into the district now purposefully trying to sow confusion. Ted Lieu asked me to alert Blue America supporters and ask for people to chip into Summer’s efforts to combat the sudden influx of money from Kevin McCarthy. “Summer Lee,” he told me, “is the real deal– she will fight for lower healthcare costs– whereas her opponent is trying to trick voters to think he’s someone that he is not.”
Last night, the Wall Street Journalreported that “Back in June, the Cook Political Report changed the race in the heavily Democratic district where the party would typically have little trouble winning a House race to likely Democrat from solid Democrat. The report cited Ms. Lee’s progressive views, redistricting that created the new 12th district, which now incorporates more conservative voters, and ‘name confusion among longtime (Democratic) Doyle voters.’”
When I first met Summer last year, she told me that her “progressivism wasn’t about a brand, or theory, or the smartest policy paper. It was about the relentless cyclical inequality I saw everywhere in the home region that raised me and informed my politics. It was about what I knew it would take to make real changes in my own life and the lives of people and communities I love. Growing up in North Braddock and Swissvale, a Black woman in a poor and working class community, I saw firsthand the impacts of environmental racism, underfunded public schools, low wages, and inadequate healthcare and housing… But I’ve also always known in my bones that it doesn’t have to be this way– and our movement here has been proving it for many cycles now.”
Since running for— and winning— a seat in the legislature, she told me she learned that “If we are going to win the massive systemic change we need in our society, being progressive can’t be just about your policies, but how you do your politics.”
True systemic change will never come from a few or even many elected officials– progressive or not– alone. The type of change that liberates and advances society can only come from mass movements of the people– a poor and working class, multi-racial and multi-generational coalition ready to win power together. So it has been true all throughout history from abolition to women’s suffrage, to workers’ right to civil and voting rights, only when the people, organized and wielding their power to demand progress has congress ever moved to enact any change we need.
Of course, this doesn’t mean there’s no role for progressive elected officials – I’m running to be one! What I mean is: now is a time to build movements, not monuments. We need to invest in truly progressive leadership at every level now more than ever, from community leaders to voters, to candidates, to campaigners and movement organizations.
Of course, this is about policy– as a baseline, we should expect all our candidates to champion what we know are popular, working class centered policies that have been elevated by the progressive electoral movement– Green New Deal, Medicare for All, racial justice, a living wage, unions and workers’ rights.
But policy is only the beginning, and not enough on it’s own. The greatest barrier to achieving liberation and progressive change is the politics of old, that is exclusive and thrives in the dark, where a tiny handful of “experts” are able to disempower and disenfranchise leaders who deserve accountability, co-governing, and decision-making input over the laws that impact our lives.
Every campaign for elected office is an opportunity to shun me-centered campaigns, and embrace and advance we-centered movements that use their capacity to build power for all poor and working class and marginalized people.
We don’t need folks in office who will govern like they’re the smartest person in the room. Surely, we have enough of those types of folks already. What we need are folks who are smart enough to understand that we need to build, empower, and co-govern with our most impacted and vulnerable constituents and communities. Folks who understand the need to seek, center, and respect the perspectives and expertise of our constituents who are least likely to be invited into fancy rooms and curated tables of power as much if not far more than we do the colleagues, lobbyists and corporations led by folks with purchased titles and letters. We need folks in office who are from among them, and share the urgency of communities that can’t wait for investments in the solutions and infrastructure that our government not only can provide, but owes its marginalized and working class people.
We can’t afford to lose seats simply because Democratic voters have been tricked into voting for the wrong person. It’s ridiculous. If a little money will help Lee get the word out to constituents, then we need to help.
Liz Truss sank the pound and threw the British economy into turmoil with her ill-conceived plan to cut taxes on the rich. She resigned today. (The lettuce lasted longer than she did.) But if you think the lesson of her folly has been learned on this side of the pond, think again:
Republicans routinely declare that inflation is their “best” issue in the midterms. But there is no reason to think inflation would shrink under a GOP majority in the House or Senate. Indeed, Republicans are projecting they would make inflation worse.
The Post reports, “Republicans plan to push to extend key parts of President Donald Trump’s tax cuts if they take control of Congress in this fall’s elections, aiming to force President Biden to codify trillions of dollars worth of lower taxes touted by his predecessor.”
Wait, what happened to their hand-wringing over inflation? Do they expect voters to believe that tax cuts primarily for the rich wouldn’t be inflationary?
In fact, when the Trump tax cuts were first passed, Republicans insisted they would pay for themselves by boosting economic growth. (That didn’t happen, but it did spur stock buybacks, contrary to Republican claims.) At a moment when Republicans are hollering about fiscal irresponsibility, it is bewildering that they are doubling down on the sametaxcuts.
Jim Kessler, head of the moderate Democratic Third Way think tank, tells me, “Tax cuts like that in the U.S. would contradict everything the Fed is doing and put the U.S. economy in an inflation-driven tailspin.”
Jason Furman, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, compares the Republican proposals to British Prime Minister Liz Truss’s disastrous tax proposal that sank the British pound, and led to Truss’s resignation, arguing, “At worst they could also cause a U.K.-style market meltdown. Either way they are completely at odds with the argument that deficits have fueled inflation.”
This should end any talk that the election is a choice between addressing inflation or protecting democracy. In reality, it’s about whether Republicans will be granted power to make inflation worse and to threaten democracy.
It’s all they know. Sadly, way too many Americans have been brainwashed into thinking they have all the right ideas about the economy. Then they sink it, the Dems are elected and do all the hard work to fix it and the Republicans jump back in with promises of tax cuts. It’s been working like that for decades. Isn’t it time we changed the channel?
