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Being thankful for a dumpster fire seems like a weird thing.

And if I'm being honest, I don't suppose it's the actual shinola of 2020 that I'm thankful for. It's what that shinola provided.

Think of all the things that have been stripped away during the coronavirus pandemic. We've missed out on hometown sports and get-togethers and shopping and parades and ... well ... you name it.

Many of us have lost loved ones or suffered ourselves thanks to the virus' effects.

And we've gone through much more than COVID-19.

Our nation has seen a nasty election both sides were ugly and a media that seemed wildly unbalanced.

We've witnessed riots and looting as well police whose actions have warranted protests.

Through it all, we've had a chance to grow. A chance to be better. A chance to focus on the things that matter.

Because apparently we needed it.

In the end, it's 2020's reminders of what matters that really mean something.

The reminder that people still matter. Grace still matters. Love still matters.

Through all of the garbage we've witnessed this year, people have remained. People who are as loved by their Creator as you and I are.

That nasty Republican across the street? Yep, God loves him as much as He loves you.

That weird Democrat neighbor? God loves her, too.

That Antifa protester busting store windows and setting fires and taking whatever he pleases? Still loved by the Big Guy.

That alt-right white supremacist? Loved.

That governor who handed down the lockdown edict that closed your gym or shuttered your business or canceled your school year because, as you believe, he's on a power trip? God's love is for him.

That governor who refused to mandate masks or enact other COVID-19 mandates because, as you believe, he doesn't care if grandma dies? The cross covers him, too.

It's a crazy thing to consider, but 2020 has given us a lot of opportunities to remember that if God loves all of us that much, then the very least that we can do is to try to love each other that much.

We're not called to love just during the easy times, or to love only the people who are easy to love. That's not how real love works. Real love happens without consideration for situations or whether love will be returned.

True love just loves and that's all it does.

It's about everyone else all the time.

It's about coming alongside and just being with people.

It's about following God to people who are hurting and there are a lot of them and being there when they hit the ground hard. ("Catching people on the bounce," as Bob Goff puts it.)

It's about drawing a great big circle around everybody and saying they're all in your circle just like the circle grace drew around all of us.

This year has been ... something. A lesson for us all. A chance to love the way we should. A chance to just be with people.

Be thankful for that.

Link:
It's OK to be thankful for the 2020 dumpster fire - TheBlaze

We haven't seen the last of Pete Evans. Photo / Supplied

When word spread that Pete Evans was closing his Facebook account, people like Kaz Ross were optimistic but sceptical.

The political science expert knows too well how alternative "health and wellness" gurus like the former My Kitchen Rules judge can influence the public and perpetuate their often dangerous and misinformed ideas.

The lecturer predicted that brands that came out publicly dumping Pete this month would walk back their criticism as essential oil multi-level marketing company doTERRA did.

But now it appears Evans hasn't left Facebook after all.

The celebrity chef announced he was closing his account with 1.5 million followers nearly a week ago, but is still regularly posting to his page.

"He will find that without Facebook it's harder to draw traffic to his page," Dr Ross said of Evans' move to his Evolve platform that he has been promoting.

"They've been preparing to move to a separate economic network for a long time.

"We talk about whether he's stupid, crazy, alternative that's the wrong approach Pete Evans is a brand and we have to look at what is the brand doing to build it's brand market share?"

Evans announced he was quitting Facebook after being dumped by his publisher, Channel 10 and other brands he was associated with because of his controversial posts, most recently sharing a neo-Nazi cartoon.

He said he would not be "censored ever again".

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"He will just ride it out," said Dr Ross, who has become an expert on how the far right uses racism against the Chinese to foster neo-Nazi claims.

"When he gets censored, he can use that and incorporate that into his message.

"The message is we have the true story on health and wellness and the mainstream media and the global cabal don't want you to know this."

Global cabal theories centre around the idea that there is a single sinister group of people who secretly control the world.

"The more censored he is, the more it builds his brand because he's saying they don't want the truth to get out," Dr Ross said.

"His fan base really swamps the media, his Facebook page, anyone writing about him and every time he's censored or critiqued, it proves his point.

"Controversy is good for him."

Dr Ross said she knew companies would renege on their dumpings because of the backlash they would get from his followers in doing so.

The same day doTERRA took a stand against him, it later came out saying the company had "felt mounting pressure from a public controversy" and had "reacted with a statement that failed to receive the required thoughtful review that it merited".

Dr Ross said Evans might have been cancelled this Christmas but "you'll see him back on the shelves pretty soon".

With the coronavirus pandemic fuelling conspiracy theories in 2020, Dr Ross said the alternative health and wellness world had embraced them because it suited their brands.

"Anti-Chinese sentiment has been really bad this year, particularly in Melbourne," she said, having started her career in Asian studies.

"The alternative wellness space people have latched on to QAnon and general conspiracy theories because they're good for their brand.

"I think that a lot of people have become more aware of Pete Evans through the conspiracy theory stuff and you see a lot of it with the wellness and anti-vax crew on Instagram.

"These people are getting a lot of exposure because of coronavirus.

"They can build their brand about health and healing and also position themselves against the mainstream media."

QAnon is a wide-ranging, unfounded conspiracy theory that centres on the idea US President Donald Trump is waging a secret war against corrupt and elite Satan-worshipping paedophiles in government, business and the media.

In a year where things "seem out of control" Dr Ross said you could see why people turned to wellness narratives.

"In a pandemic, people want to believe a simple narrative, and the alternative wellness movement offers that," she said.

"If you're a good person with good intentions and eat nice, clean food, you won't get sick, and that's very empowering.

"You can control your health by eating essential oils and grain-fed beef or whatever they do, and you can ward off illness, and that's a premise of the wellness industry your intentions can create health. But sometimes you get sick, it just happens, you can't control everything."

Dr Ross said it was easy for people just to think of Pete Evans as a personality but he used that to his advantage.

"He puts himself out as a natural, authentic person with a disarming smile and he'll say I don't know, I'm just asking the questions," she said.

"That's his technique. But you should know, you're head of a pretty big brand it's your business to know."

She highlighted how a huge number of people were actually required to keep Evans' brand going.

"The alternative wellness people, they are their own brand and there are huge numbers of people required to keep his business going," she said.

"When you think of it, you just think of Pete Evans as just the individual."

Dr Ross said another technique Evans used was plausible deniability when he posted the cartoon of the black sun and "walked back from it".

"It's a tactic used all the time by the alt-right, since about 2015," she said.

"You post a dodgy meme and say oh no, I didn't know it meant that.

"It's a dog whistle to those that understand it and then you can deny it if you're ever accused."

After Evans was condemned for sharing the cartoon, he later came out saying he didn't know what it represented and had to look up what a neo-Nazi was.

Dr Ross said Evans was not a neo-Nazi, simply an opportunist.

She said a number of the conspiracy theorist types had started to monetise those opportunities.

Alongside the pandemic she said those identities were also fuelled by the anti-vax movement.

Dr Ross said the anti-vaxxers claimed they were suppressed by the mainstream media.

"Someone like Pete Evans gets so much attention from so-called mainstream media, which itself is very misleading, because he does get coverage it's just the things he says are really stupid it doesn't mean there is a cover-up of truth," she said.

Dr Ross said the problems with the promises spruiked by alternative wellness types were they were not medically true.

"Nobody is going to say eating healthy is bad for you; it's just you need to be guided by science and science is contradictory, it isn't a straightforward process," she said.

"It's not we've got the answer now. This is the way science works and people don't think about contradictory science views."

See the rest here:
Why 'stupid, crazy, alternative' Pete Evans labels are the wrong approach - New Zealand Herald

Jeff Klein (left) with co-workers at GE Lynn, circa 1979. The Steam Turbine division of GE Lynn was closed in the late 1980s and Building 57, where the photo was taken, was torn down and made into a parking lot.

Im happy to be retired. After decades working as a machinist in New England factories and shops, I cant say I miss having to clock into the job at 7am.I dont miss the sweaty, dirty and sometimes dangerous work I had to do. And even though I have been fortunate to have jobs mostly in places with collective bargaining agreements, I surely dont miss working in a hierarchical environment where bosses and supervisors still had too much power.

But there is something I do regret about being retired. That is the daily interaction with working people from different communities, with social and political backgrounds and outlooks often very different from my own. Instead, like most MAPA members, I spend almost all my time in liberal/progressive social and political circles.I now rarely have meaningful contact with people who do the work often overlooked and disrespected to make our society function.

I dont idealize the working class. My co-workers and I were fortunate to have union jobs that were mostly highly skilled and relatively well paid. These workers, who were overwhelmingly white and male, could be selfish and individualistic. They not infrequently expressed racist or misogynist attitudes, though eventually not so much when I was present. They often adopted a kind of narrow patriotism that was tinged with white supremacy and American chauvinism.Many of them had problems with drugs or alcohol.

At GE in Lynn I was called a commie for my political views. At the Deer Island plant of the Mass Water Resources Authority a worker who belonged to another union (there were 5 different unions there) assumed a religious affiliation from my last name and once told me he wished they had a smart Jew like me to run their local. He thought it was a compliment.

But I also learned the lesson over the years that people could be more than just one thing. At the MWRA, these same workers elected me president of our local for consecutive terms.Together we fought and defeated an attempt to introduce a dual wage structure for new hires which would have affected only a minority of union members. We organized successfully to stop the privatization of the regional water and sewer systems. We won good contracts and defended union members often people of color targeted for unfair discipline.

A union member,thoughinfluenced by racism, could also stand up to support a fellow worker of color on the job.People whocould be very creative in slacking offatalso took pride in their skills as electricians, plumbers, carpenters, welders or plant operators. At the MWRA, these are the people who maintain and run the system that delivers drinking water to millions of Massachusetts homes 24/7 and who made possible the cleanupofBoston harbor. These were the members of my union.

The long-time Vice-President of my local was an Irish guy from the Charlestown projects who, in a kind of Townie rite of passage, was arrested robbing a liquor store.When the judge offered him a choice of jail or military enlistment, he chose the Marines. As a youth, he rioted against court-ordered busing to desegregate the Boston schools. In his mind, he saw this not so much as an expression of racism but an act of rebellion against the liberal elites he understood to run the city. Years later, he became atenacious and skillednegotiator who was elected president of the union for many years after I retired.

No doubt there were Trump supporters among the members of my union, as there were in many predominantly white working-class communities.We need to ask why. Racism was an important factor, but to my mind that does not explain it all.

Of course,there is a significant core of organized white supremacists and alt-right quasi fascists in Trumps base, but there were also masses of ordinary white working people and a not-insignificant number of Black men and Latinos among the more than 73 millionwho voted for Trump. Some of them had cast a ballot for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, or for Bernie Sanders in this years Democratic primaries.

Admittedly, people like the ones I used to work with represent only a part and a proportionately diminishing one of the US working class. Still, they and their families number in the tens of millions. Should we dismiss them entirely as hopeless? Instead, we should recognize that our failure to communicate effectively with white workers also applies to large sectors of the broader multi-national US working class, including workers of color.

Decades of neoliberal policies by both parties have shattered their hopes for decent secure jobs and a better future for their children. But what they get from Democrats is often condescension and ill-disguised disdain. Barack Obama, who on occasion could show grace and great empathy, once referred this way to working-class voters in old industrial towns decimated by job losses:They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who arent like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

For those of us who dont profess religious belief and rarely mix with the many who do, it might be easy to recall the famous line that religion is the opium of the people.But we ignore Marxs preceding sentence that Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.

We can laugh at rednecks on TV and react with self-satisfied disgust when religious people fall prey to huckster preachers or cynical rightwing political operatives.But we forget that sincerereligious conviction motivated many northern abolitionistsand that Blackchurches were the organizational backbone of the civil rights movement.

As for guns, yes, there is plenty of nuttiness, sometimes sinister and murderous, around firearms in our country. But for millions of Americans the possession of a weapon is also an expression of defiance toward a state machinery which almost never takes their side.

When Hilary Clinton spoke of deplorables, many understood this as a contemptuous denial of their own humanity. Acknowledging this does not mean that we should capitulate to the racism or xenophobia often internalized by white workers. It does suggest that we should struggle to challenge misguided beliefs with empathy and understanding for the causes rather than a blanket condemnation of the people holding them.

The Democratic Party establishment has allowed the Republicans, and especially Trump, to mobilize what amounts to class resentment in the service of plutocracy. Meanwhile, we on the left, with rare exceptions, have failed to offer a message that resonates with or sufficiently motivates millions of working-class voters and non-voters. We rarely encounter, nor have we learned to connect with, many of our fellow-citizens. We dont know how to talk to the working class.

It is possible that a coalition of African Americans and other people of color, together with college-educated liberals and only a small segment of white workers, can barely win some local or national elections. This happened in 2020, though thanks more to the Coronavirus pandemic rather than effective political messaging.

But it is hard to imagine a stable progressive future for our country with many millions of working-class Americans mobilized in angry opposition. At best this will create a political deadlock that frustrates possibilities for the lasting and radical reforms we so desperately need. At worst it is a recipe for civil war.

Read this article:
Can We Build a Progressive Future If We Dismiss a Large Part of the Working Class? - CounterPunch

WASHINGTON When President-elect Joe Biden announced the core of his national security team on Monday, there was one glaring omission: his choice for defense secretary.

That absence is leading to questions about whether Michle Flournoy, a politically moderate Pentagon veteran whose confirmation would give the Defense Department its first woman leader, remains the odds-on favorite for the role.

The doubts came as Flournoy has been under pressure from the left over her defense industry ties and relatively hawkish views. Flournoy joined Booz Allen Hamiltons board and co-founded defense consulting firm WestExec Advisors in 2018, and, in 2007, co-founded the Center for a New American Security think tank, which relies on support from defense firms.

On Monday, Biden announced Antony Blinken, his longtime adviser and Flournoys partner at WestExec, as his nominee for secretary of state. Biden also selected Jake Sullivan for national security adviser; Alejandro Mayorkas for homeland security secretary; Linda Thomas-Greenfield as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; and Avril Haines for director of national intelligence. Haines also has ties to WestExec.

Politico reported Monday that while Flournoy is still a strong contender, Biden is not entirely sold on her, though its unclear how big of a role the resistance from the left is playing. Jeh Johnson, President Barack Obamas second secretary of homeland security, is another top candidate and he would be the first Black defense secretary, but he could also concern progressives as a member of Lockheed Martins board.

Fox News reported Monday that Flournoy will be the pick, but the timing of the move is not clear. The Biden transition team did not respond to a request for comment.

There is a push to support Flournoys candidacy amid the uncertainty.

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A group of 11 military and veteran support organizations endorsed Flournoy over the weekend, praising her undisputed expertise and calling for a swift confirmation, should she be nominated. And after news of some Biden picks leaked without a defense secretary on Monday, the No Exceptions initiative, which pushed to open all combat positions to women, activated its email network to urgently gather signatures for an open letter to support Flournoy as a historic choice.

Michle was a tremendous ally to No Exceptions in our fight to open all combat roles in the U.S. Armed Forces to women. Now, its our turn to support her, said the email, which was described as time sensitive. The group hoped to release their letter Tuesday or Wednesday, a spokeswoman said.

Flournoys Pentagon experience is not in doubt, as she has served multiple times in the Defense Department, starting in the 1990s and most recently as the undersecretary of defense for policy from 2009 to 2012.

Still, progressives wary of Flournoys business dealings want Biden to show a break from President Donald Trump, who selected two defense secretaries from industry: former Boeing executive Patrick Shanahan and former Raytheon executive Mark Esper.

Left-leaning Reps. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., and Barbara Lee, D-Calif., wrote a letter this month asking Biden not to nominate a defense secretary who has ties to defense contractors, which was seen as a veiled shot at Flournoy. Meanwhile, progressive groups are broadly calling for greater transparency into the potential conflicts of interest of executive branch appointees.

After the rampant corruption and conflicts of interest weve seen in the Trump administration, it would behoove the Biden administration to really demonstrate they are charting a different course and they are adding some protections to restore faith and trust in these institutions, said Stephen Miles, executive director of Win Without War, a progressive foreign policy organization.

Another concern for progressives is that Flournoy, as reported by Foreign Policy, clashed with Biden over U.S. force levels in Afghanistan when he was vice president and she was Pentagon policy chief during the Obama administration and in the past, she pushed to keep more U.S. forces in Iraq. (Biden is seeking a swift pullout from Afghanistan with a residual counter-terrorism force.)

In a tweet on Sunday, Rep. Ro Khanna, a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and House Armed Services Committee, raised questions about Flournoy publicly and by name.

Flournoy supported the war in Iraq & Libya, criticized Obama on Syria, and helped craft the surge in Afghanistan. I want to support the Presidents picks, said Khanna, D-Calif., referring to Biden. But will Flournoy now commit to a full withdrawal from Afghanistan & a ban on arms sales to the Saudis to end the Yemen war?

Progressives and grassroots advocates spurred congressional actions around ending U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen an end Biden supports and is included in the 2020 Democratic platform and they want to ensure his administration keeps human rights concerns at the center of a new, less-militarized U.S. foreign policy.

I think progressives effectively pulled together with the Biden campaign to get a number of important foreign policy priorities into the Democratic Party platform, said Matt Duss, foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders. Now progressives are going to want to hear from any nominee how theyre going to be following through on those commitments.

Flournoy has taken the concerns of progressive foreign policy groups seriously enough that she convened a call with them, and she offered assurances she opposed the sale of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia that could be used in Yemen, according to Politico.

Because Flournoy, Blinken and other Biden team figures have maintained or at least opened communications with progressive groups, some of their representatives say their intent isnt to block Flournoy or other nominees, but to put progressive issues and foreign policy concerns on the table.

You dont have to protest outside the White House when you can go into the White House and make the case for your position, Miles said. That doesnt mean you never protest outside the White House, but when theres a time and a place for it.

View post:
No SecDef pick from Biden as Flournoy hits resistance from progressives - DefenseNews.com

Though there are many positions left to fill, Bidens Cabinet announcements so far fit a pattern: The former vice president has chosen people for top positions who havent sparked bitter or protracted fights with the left without giving progressives any major wins. None of Bidens nods have been wildly off the mark to the left flank of the Democratic Party. And the president-elect has also selected leaders who, despite being moderate, have spent time building relationships with progressives.

It could have been a lot worse, said Rebecca Katz, a progressive strategist who advised incoming left-wing Rep. Jamaal Bowmans campaign, adding that things could still change. Hes not picking any lefties. Hes just picking people who havent alienated the left, who are listening.

Several progressive elected officials, aides and activists have, in turn, offered cautious praise of Biden during the transition period and avoided serious battles with him so far. They stressed, however, that it is early in the process and things could certainly shift, especially during confirmation hearings. Still, their posture toward Bidens Cabinet selections to date stands out when compared with the no-holds-barred brawl between moderate and left-wing Democrats in Congress that has been raging since Election Day.

Progressives said that for many of Bidens picks, theres been a worse option that theyre grateful he didnt choose. In many of those cases, they lobbied his team to keep those people out.

For Treasury, the fear was that he might go with Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo, a former venture capitalist who is disliked by labor unions because she cut pensions. For secretary of State, Blinken is viewed on the left as preferable to moderate Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), a longtime Biden ally. For his chief of staff, they implored Biden to pick his eventual choice, Ron Klain, who played a role in Bidens outreach to progressives this year, over Steve Ricchetti, a former lobbyist.

Progressives are breathing a little bit of a sigh of relief because the wing of the party that Joe Biden comes from is not getting everything they want here, said Waleed Shahid, spokesperson for the Justice Democrats, which recruited Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to run for Congress. Meaning The Third Way, conservative wing of the party.

Progressive immigrant rights groups such as United We Dream tepidly welcomed the appointment of Alejandro Mayorkas to head Homeland Security, who as the first Latino to potentially lead the department could bring a different tone.

But Biden and Mr. Mayorkas were part of the team that unfortunately oversaw millions of deportations, said Greisa Martinez Rosas, executive director of United We Dream. And we see our role as holding everyone accountable to ensure that does not happen again.

Some even go beyond faint approval. Liberals closely aligned with the Warren wing of the progressive movement said theres a lot to be happy about in Bidens early selections.

The biggest turning point was actually the selection of Ron Klain, which we saw as extremely positive news, said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. That sent a broader signal that when there are multiple options on the table for Biden, and one of them is most acceptable to progressives that he will go in that direction, keeping peace in the land.

Some progressives, however, criticize left-wing groups for going too far in applauding Bidens safe choices.

I dont want to exaggerate. John Kerrys fine. [But] this need to pretend that these milquetoast nominees with mixed records are great progressive heroes is pretty pathetic, said David Sirota, Sanders former speechwriter. What I think we need right now are advocacy groups and activists and journalists to just be honest about who these nominees are.

Part of Bidens successful navigation so far seems to stem from his own strength in nurturing political relationships and his decision to tap personnel with similar attributes. Biden gets along with Sanders and Warren, both of whom have sought top jobs in the administration. Climate activists said Kerry worked well with them on policy task forces that Biden formed with Sanders after the primary. Likewise, Matt Duss, Sanders foreign policy adviser, said Blinken helped in the lefts attempt to end U.S. support for the war in Yemen, which meant a lot.

During the campaign, Tony and his team made a point to engage regularly with progressive groups as part of Bidens broader effort to reach out to the left and unify the party, said Duss. Theres no doubt it helped them win, and continuing to do it now will help them govern.

Progressives said another reason Biden likely went with what they see as broadly acceptable picks not only to them, but also to moderates and even some conservatives is because of the close divide in Congress. Democrats hold a slim majority in the House and, at best, would face the same situation in the Senate if the party wins two runoff races in Georgia. That is forcing Biden to appeal more to the left, they said.

Liberal Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said progressives arent going to come out swinging early when they see a lot to applaud. For one, he said, the appointees understand the national security implications of climate change. And Yellen, Schatz said, is closer to a dream pick than people may realize because the nominee represents a big formal break from the idea that austerity helps the overall economy.

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Still, the left needs to see the full pantheon of nominees before we make a judgment about whether this team is sufficiently committed to the kinds of change necessary, he said. At the same time, Democrats need to be vigilant against the-cupboard-is-bare instinct" when spending money for top priorities, said Schatz. Progressives will push Biden on that point as he makes appointments, but he cautioned, if we freak out, hair-on-fire about the small stuff, nobody's going to listen to us about the big stuff.

That isnt to say Biden hasnt received any blowback from progressives. The Sunrise Movement, a group of young climate change activists, said it felt like a betrayal when Biden tapped Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.) as a senior adviser. The left-wing organization Demand Progress lists Ricchetti, whom Biden has empowered to be the White House liaison to Congress and corporate leaders, as a Person of Interest on its website aimed at keeping corporate insiders out of the administration.

Moving forward, progressives major focus is on excluding Democrats who favor austere governing from Bidens team. In recent days, progressive lawmakers and strategists have launched petitions and tweeted their opposition to some Obama-era carryovers. For instance, they are trying to keep centrist former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and deficit hawk Bruce Reed away from the Biden White House, particularly in top spots such as Transportation secretary and the head of the Office of Management and Budget.

Progressives also oppose Mike Morell, who has defended drone strikes, for CIA director and BlackRock managing director Brian Deese for the National Economic Council. Jennifer Epps-Addison, president of the left-wing Center for Popular Democracy, which endorsed Sanders in the primary, said the appointments of Deese or Reed would feel like a bridge really far away from bringing these different factions within the party together.

Similarly, Schatz said, a Reed appointment is worth watching, but he didnt want to assume that, because Reed was a key presence in a fiscal reform commission derided by progressives under former President Barack Obama, his views are locked and that he's gonna work with Third Way and cut spending.

In a statement provided by Biden's team, former presidential candidate Tom Steyer came to Reed's defense: "He's a climate champion who will fully support the Biden clean energy plan, and anyone who thinks he will put budget deficits over the needs of working families struggling to make ends meet during a pandemic simply doesn't know Bruce."

Third Way, the center-left think tank, described its credentials as being from "the Joe Biden wing of the Democratic Party" and said "no Democrats in their right minds" are advocating spending cuts amid multiple crises.

The left is also urging Biden to go with Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.), a Warren ally, for secretary of the Interior, and keeping a close eye on whom Biden nominates to the Justice Department. And the Progressive Change Campaign Committee is pushing Biden on lower-level government positions, collaborating with some 40 liberal and nonpartisan groups on a list sent by the Progressive Change Institute to his transition team.

"It's not as progressive as I would like it to be, but it's good news that Biden so far is also keeping conservative Democrats who are hostile to progressives, like Rahm Emanuel and Bruce Reed, out, said Bowman of Bidens picks. The Cabinet process is just the beginning these are the folks we have to work with, but also the folks we're going to push."

More here:
Biden keeps the peace with first Cabinet picks - POLITICO