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The left or progressive wing of Californias Democratic Party has a dream and believes that the states political structure is primed to make it reality.

The oft-expressed dream is to transform California into something like Sweden, France or the Netherlands with an expansive array of cradle-to-the-grave services, a highly unionized green economy and, of course, the high taxes to pay for it.

With huge Democratic majorities in the Legislature and a governor lending verbal support, those on the left believe its a unique opportunity to advance the vision.

However the vision clashed with political reality this week as its centerpiece creating a single-payer health care system to replace the private-public, insurance-based model now in place stalled out in the Assembly because not enough Democrats would vote for it in an election year.

Those who had been pushing single-payer for years, hoping that a victory in California would galvanize a national system, were incensed that the author of the bill, Assemblyman Ash Kalra of San Jose, refused to take up the bill.

Assembly Bill 1400s chief sponsor, the California Nurses Association, turned on Kalra, saying, Nurses are especially outraged that Kalra chose to just give up on patients across the state. Nurses never give up on our patients, and we will keep fighting with our allies in the grassroots movement for CalCare until all people in California can get the care they need, regardless of ability to pay.

CalMatters reporter Alexei Koseff revealed that Kalra later told supporters on a Zoom call, I dont believe it would have served the cause of getting single payer done by having the vote and having it go down in flames and further alienating members, adding that he was short of the required 41 votes by double digits.

The issue created a two-way squeeze on Democratic legislators an open threat from progressives to deny party endorsements if they didnt back Kalras bill and an implied threat from opponents that a vote for it would be characterized as a support for a huge tax increase. With redistricting making election outcomes less certain, Kalra protected his colleagues by not forcing them to vote either way.

It was not the lefts only setback. Another priority bill, aimed at bolstering rent control, also died without a floor vote. The states Ellis Act now allows landlords to evict tenants from rent-controlled housing if they sell the property, and has long been a target of progressive activists.

Their measure, Assembly Bill 854, would have required new owners of rent-controlled housing to hold their properties for at least five years before invoking the Ellis Act. The fact that they couldnt even make their positions public on two major progressive priorities today, I consider that an insult to the public, honestly, said Shanti Singh, legislative director for Tenants Together.

The only good news for progressives Monday was passage albeit barely of another priority measure. Assembly Bill 257 would create a European-style governmental council to set wages and working conditions for the franchised fast food industry McDonalds, Burger King, etc.

The proposed Fast-Food Sector Council, dominated by employees and appointees of union-friendly politicians, would bypass the traditional union organization and collective bargaining process.

If enacted, AB 257 would be a precedent for other economic sectors resistant to unionization, such as agriculture. But its fate in the state Senate is far from certain as it faces very stiff opposition from the franchise industry and the larger business community.

California may eventually make the progressives social democracy dream a reality, but it wont happen anytime soon.

CalMatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how Californias state Capitol works and why it matters. For more stories by Dan Walters, go to calmatters.org/commentary.

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Progressive agenda takes a beating in Capitol - Press-Enterprise

Last week, two progressive Democrats issued a statement chiding the Biden administration for preparing troop deploymentsto Europe and military aid to Ukraine that the lawmakers said could escalate the crisis. On Wednesday, the U.S. announced Biden was sending 3,000 troops to Eastern Europe in response to the Russian threat to Ukraine.

We have significant concerns that new troop deployments, sweeping and indiscriminate sanctions, and a flood of hundreds of millions of dollars in lethal weapons will only raise tensions and increase the chance of miscalculation, Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said. Russias strategy is to inflame tensions; the United States and NATO must not play into this strategy. Lee was the only member of Congress to vote against the war in Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

In think tanks and academic institutions, meanwhile, a growing crop of restraint-oriented scholars are trying not to get drowned out by their more numerous hawkish colleagues. Some of these scholars had hoped that, in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, they could now focus on convincing Biden to pull American troops out of Iraq and Syria. Instead, they are dealing with what feels like a new trans-Atlantic Cold War, just as tensions between the United States and China are also rising in the Pacific.

This is not as easy as some of the other cases, where, for example, its much more clear that the United States shouldnt engage in any more regime change operations in the Middle East, acknowledged Will Ruger, who helped steer funding to restraint-focused scholars from the libertarian-leaning Koch network and now leads the American Institute for Economic Research.

The Ukraine crisis threatens to divert U.S. military and economic resources toward a potential land war that many restrainers believe simply isnt in Americas interest. But it is unusually complicated because it also involves NATO, long-standing American military commitments to European allies and Putin, a dictator bent on redrawing the world map, whom many restrainers loathe.

The crisis also has exposed how restrainers remain a relatively weak force in Washington, including in Congress, despite the voices of progressives skeptical of military intervention who had hoped for a more sympathetic ear from the Biden team.

Richard Fontaine, chief executive officer of the bipartisan Center for a New American Security, said the Biden administration is dealing with the world as it is.

Im sure no one would have preferred to have a crisis with Russia over Ukraine, said Fontaine, who previously advised the hawkish late GOP Sen. John McCain. But you could either do nothing or you could do something. And if youre going to do something, then its going to be a mixture of deterrence and possible accommodation to reasonable Russian concerns.

Restrainers are found on both left and right in Washington. They include conservatives, often but not all in the libertarian mold, as well as some vocal progressive Democrats. Their ranks and influence have grown, with new think tanks and funding aimed at spreading their philosophy.

The motivations of restrainers are not all the same. Some care more about not spilling blood, others about not wasting treasure. For many, it comes down to the particular conflict; some are deeply worried about how America will face an increasingly powerful China, for instance. But broadly speaking, the goal is to limit the use of what they believe often is counterproductive U.S. military force.

A recent Twitter exchange between Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin and Rep. Ro Khanna, a progressive Democrat from California, captured some of the conflicting impulses facing restraint-oriented public figures thanks to the Ukraine crisis and the many countries and alliances it involves.

Ukraine has the moral high ground, Khanna tweeted at one point. We can impose sanctions & speak out clearly against Putin aggression. But our national security requires us not to get significantly entangled in a conflict that would weaken us vis a vis China.

When Rogin argued that letting Russia off the hook for Ukraine set a bad precedent for how restrainers would deal with a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, Khanna insisted that was a different situation because Taiwan was more tied to the U.S. economy.

Khanna was unavailable for comment. But his argument hints at the choices some restrainers believe the U.S. must make in deciding when to get involved in a foreign crisis. Those choices raise questions about restrainers willingness to ignore the causes of human rights and democracy when they believe it serves the U.S. national interest.

As they see the debate over Ukraine spiral into threats of a potentially long, bloody war, many restrainers are saying, I told you so.

The roots of the problem, these restrainers argue in op-eds and other forums, lie at decisions years ago by the United States and some of its allies to allow for the possibility of one day admitting Ukraine and Georgia as members of NATO.

The growth of the military alliance has long been a sore point for Putin, who has led Russia for more than two decades and sees NATO as a threat to his countrys influence over many of its neighbors. In remarks Tuesday, Putin alleged that U.S. officials are merely using Ukraine as a tool to hinder the development of Russia.

The Russian president has already carried out limited invasions of both Ukraine and Georgia; his build-up of 100,000 troops along Ukraines border this time, though, augurs grander plans.

Ukraine and Georgia are unlikely to join NATO anytime soon. Still, the U.S. should have taken their membership off the table completely in earlier talks with Putin in exchange for significant moves on his part, such as withdrawing forces he has in those countries, said Gavin Wilde, a former National Security Council official who dealt with Russia.

Wilde, who describes himself as a liberal internationalist-turned-restrainer, says it doesnt help that the United States and its allies have often conflated NATO a defensive military pact with ideas like democracy, the rule of law and human rights.

Now it seems like that particular opportunity to deescalate and get some concessions from Putin may have passed, said Wilde, who is now with Defense Priorities, a restraint-focused think tank.

Plenty of foreign policy practitioners disagree with Wildes diagnosis.

Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, said restrainers want to blame everything on NATO expansion when much of the problem really comes down to Putin.

Its a problem of Putin believing he will only be secure if he can control his neighborhood, Daalder said, adding that the Russian dictator in particular fears that democratic progress in places like Ukraine will embolden Russians to rise up against him.

Daalder and others also dismissed the notion that Bidens decision to pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan had much to do with the doctrine of restraint.

Biden had long advocated for an end to the United States presence in Afghanistan, believing it was a fruitless fight that drained resources from more important standoffs, including with Russia and China, Daalder argued.

Still, plenty of restrainers are taking comfort in Bidens promise that U.S. troops will not play a direct fighting role in any battle for Ukraine, even though some may be sent to beef up the American presence in nearby NATO countries as a deterrent.

He continues to display a realist sensibility, said Stephen Wertheim, a restraint-supporting scholar who last year co-authored a Foreign Affairs essay titled Biden the Realist. The problem? Its competing with both the constraints of politics and a liberal internationalist streak, too.

Despite Bidens promises now, restrainers worry that the conflict will evolve in a way that drags the United States into a direct shooting war, especially if hawkish lawmakers pressure the White House and campaign politics require a tough on Russia stance.

You hear people talk about supporting an insurgency in Ukraine. What does that mean? Covert actors on the ground? What happens if they get killed? Ruger said. What happens if this gets escalated?

One of the trickiest parts of arguing for restraint in the case of Ukraine is the risk of being accused of supporting Putin, whose human rights record includes poisoning political opponents and eviscerating media freedoms.

Commentator Peter Beinart, who long ago came to regret his support of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, recently described accusations that restrainers are pro-Putin as a type of cancel culture. He noted that supporters of deposing tyrants like Iraqs Saddam Hussein often failed to calculate the longer-term risks.

In deposing Saddam, the U.S. launched a war that took roughly 200,000 Iraqi lives, strengthened Iran, and helped create ISIS, Beinart writes. In deposing Muammar Qaddafi, the U.S. helped turn Libya into a failed state, thus scattering weapons and fighters across West Africa, some of whom reportedly helped launch a coup in Burkina Faso last week. All of which makes it quite plausible that keeping NATO membership open to Ukraine will help provoke a Russian response that leaves that country less stable, less free, and less peaceful than it would be if the U.S. supported Ukrainian neutrality.

There are other factors in play as U.S. lawmakers and others weigh the implications of the Russian threats against Ukraine. Some people involved remember well the Cold War and are reflexively inclined toward a tough-on-Russia stance. Others came of age in the post-9/11 era and are skeptical of American use of force abroad. Many are almost reflexively anti-war: A coalition of such groups released a statement Tuesday calling on Biden to end the U.S. role in escalating the extremely dangerous tensions with Russia over Ukraine and blaming the crisis on NATO expansion.

Some of the sentiment is based in pure politics. To some liberals, opposing Russia and supporting Ukraine is equivalent to opposing former President Donald Trump, who repeatedly tried to curry favor with Putin and was accused of halting U.S. military aid to Ukraine in a bid to force the government in Kyiv to investigate Biden.

Its tough to predict sometimes who will land on what side, said Stephen Miles, president of Win Without War, a progressive organization. After all, one of the most powerful voices speaking out against U.S. support for Ukraine is conservative Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

The political signaling is all screwed up, Miles said.

For people like Wertheim, Ruger and others, simply the fact that there is a debate already is a victory for restrainers. Ten or 20 years ago, such voices were far more easily drowned out, they say. Now, even members of the Biden administration will at least listen.

The Biden administration at the very top has proved to be more amenable to restrainers way of thinking than expected, Wertheim said. When it comes to Russia and Ukraine, the president and his aides need to think of the long-term consequences, Wertheim added, including how a commitment to this conflict could impact their stated desires to focus U.S. foreign policy more on China.

The way things are going now, the likely outcome will be an increased U.S. commitment to Europe, and that really will be an unfortunate outcome, he said.

See more here:
The restraint crowd facepalms over Biden's Ukraine threats - POLITICO

This week's development in the "Democrats in Disarray" storyline comes from The Majority Report with Sam Seder in a video titled: Sam Debates Electoral Politics With A Jimmy Dore Fan

The show description says: "American Patriot and Marxist-Leninist Jackson Hinkle joins the Majority Report to debate Sam Seder regarding if the Squad progressives are sellouts for staying silent and giving President Joe Biden support. Sam Seder challenges Hinkles position of the media treating the Squad favorably as well as the opinion that the Squad should simply leverage their votes to capitalize on their negotiations with Biden to pass a progressive agenda swiftly through the Senate."

Hinkle highlights the difference between "establishment progressive" Democrats in Congress and a segment of the "anti-imperialist" left grassroots.

Seder begins: "I was told that you are a communist and you wanted to come on to debate: You said, I'd love to focus to the conversation on your support for The Squad. I personally believe the Squad and progressives in Congress are sellouts who have abandoned virtually every aspect of progressive principles over the past few years."

"I am a Marxist-Leninist anti-imperialist American patriot," clarified Jackson Hinkle.

Sam Seder made this point: "You've made your assessment that they're getting preferential treatment because they're not being roasted by the establishment? And then you say they're getting money from George Soros... In the form of giving it to the Sunrise movement? ... So you're contending that they sold out for over $2,700 from George Soros?"

"No, if you listen to anything I just said, I cited numerous examples where The Squad has been given preferential treatment. To just select that one, in particular, is disingenuous," Hinkle replied. "What I want to talk about, and what you seem to not want to talk about, is your continuing support for the Squad, who is going along with the Democratic establishment on all these votes they could be blocking to get concessions in return, and in some cases they are supporting anti-progressive measures and bills."

Another of the main points Hinkle tried to make is about the Squad's bona fides on anti-imperialist foreign policy:

JACKSON HINKLE: A 12% increase?

SAM SEDER: 12%, 11% increase, 13%.

JACKSON HINKLE: You don't have a problem with the State Department, who is leading coups across this world, who is launching hybrid warfare through the National Endowment for Democracy, like Venezuela like you said you had a problem and warmongering on Venezuela. You said you don't have a problem with an increase to the State Department when they could be getting concessions for progressive policies?

Another big topic was Hinkle asking Seder: "Did you criticize The Squad when AOC funneled $160,000 to DCCC corporate Democrats after promising not to?"

"First of all, she, I actually didn't," Sam Seder said. "I think there's value in doing that. I think what politicians should do, broadly speaking, is go in and try to get legislation that is positive to pass."

"Don't you also think that given that AOC specifically said she was not going to donate to them, do you think that's a problem that she went out and donated to them?" Hinkle followed up.

"I think people can take issue with that," Seder agreed. "I didn't spend enough time emphasizing it as you apparently wanted me to."

"So why did you not?" Hinkle asked. "You just told me you didn't talk about it a minute ago."

There was also this exchange where Seder appears to get the upper hand about Rep. Ilhan Omar taking money from George Soros:

The Extremely Online left and the Jimmy Dore-verse both seem to have really enjoyed the conversation:

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Sam Seder Debates Marxist Jackson Hinkle About Whether The Progressive Democratic "Squad" Are Corporate, Imperialist Sellouts -...

Comedian Michael Rapaport wasnt joking when he expressed shock as an apparent shoplifter filled his bags and casually pranced out of a Manhattan Rite Aid without paying a cent.

I cant believe Im seeing this st, Rapaport says on his video of the purported crook, who cheerfully asks the stores security guard, Sup?

Frankly, the comic shouldnt have been surprised: Retail theft has soared, with nearly 44,000 reports of it last year a 36% increase over 2020. The Post filmed another thief in the act at a Rite Aid at 8th Avenue and 50th Street in Manhattan last week, with the perp so cavalier that he spoke openly about it to our reporter, admitting hes been hitting stores for months without getting arrested.

Last year, The Post reported that 22-year-old Isaac Rodriguez had been nabbed for shoplifting 46 times in the first 10 months of 2021 alone; 77 others with 20 or more retail-theft charges are out on the streets.

Fact is, these petty thieves rarely get arrested, and when they are, theyre generally freed within hours and prosecutors often drop the case. Which leaves drugstores, which offer many small necessities, ripe for the picking.

Now retailers must brace for even more theft, especially in Manhattan, where District Attorney Alvin Bragg has vowed to keep such bandits from ever seeing the inside of a jail cell.

Yet retail thievery takes a toll: Our reporters found empty shelves at a dozen CVS, Duane Reade/Walgreens and Rite Aid stores around the city. Workers where Rapaport filmed say crooks target the place daily. That has outlets boarding: Midtowns Rite Aid at 50th and 8th, where sources report more than $200,000 in stolen merchandise over the past two months alone, is set to close by next month.

Progressives like Bragg think theyre preventing injustice, when in fact theyre inflicting it on innocent merchants and honest would-be shoppers the public that theyre sworn to protect.

See the article here:
Progressives give NYC a shoplifting boom that harms the whole city - New York Post

WASHINGTON

One of the enduring beliefs of progressive voters and officials is that public opinion invariably favors their side. The corollary is that if their plans fail to pass, unreasonable obstruction must be to blame.

Here, for example, is Sen. Bernie Sanders in a recent appearance on NBCs Meet the Press talking about the Democrats bill to increase social spending and combat climate change, which has stalled in the Senate:

What is in the reconciliation bill ... is enormously popular, the Vermont independent said. Its what 70%, 80% of the American people ... the American people want us to take on the greed of the drug companies to lower the cost of prescription drugs. Ask people whether they want to expand Medicare to cover dental, hearing and eyeglasses. Ask people whether they want to improve home healthcare, whether we want to deal with climate change. All of those pieces of legislation are enormously popular, the bill itself in its entirety.

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Its certainly possible to find polls that appear to back up that statement.

But such surveys dont give a true picture of what the public wants, unfortunately for Sanders and his fellow progressives and for President Biden, who spent much of the first year of his term pushing the spending bill to no avail.

The reasons why and the implications for progressives are worth a closer look.

Ask people if they want Congress to take on the greed of the drug companies to lower the cost of prescription drugs, as Sanders put it, and a substantial majority almost surely will say yes. People like lower costs, dont approve of greed and arent terribly fond of the drug industry, so a question worded that way will reliably produce the expected result.

Advocacy groups routinely produce polls with wording only slightly less subtle than that. Often, theyre testing language for potential campaigns to see what phrases best connect with the public. Theres nothing inherently wrong with that; the danger comes only when people, including elected officials, come to believe their own propaganda.

The public does side with Democrats on some major issues, but not all, by any means.

A Pew Research Center survey this week, for example, found that Americans gave Democrats a big advantage over Republicans when asked which party they more often agreed with on climate change (44%-22%), healthcare (42%-26%) and COVID-19 (41%-27%), but not on economic policy, guns and immigration, on which the two were basically even. Consistently, about 30% said they agreed with neither party.

Despite a lot of Republican efforts to profit from Americans anxieties about schooling during the pandemic, the survey found that Democrats held a small edge over the GOP on which party they more often agreed with on education.

A survey from Fox News, whose polling unit is widely respected in both parties, asked a slightly different list of issues and pushed those who initially said they didnt favor either party to say which side they leaned toward. That produced different numbers, but a similar lineup:

Democrats have a strong advantage, roughly 20 points, as the party likely to do a better job on climate change, racism and healthcare. They also have a smaller, but still significant, single-digit margin on the pandemic, education and bringing the country together, Fox found.

Republicans have a strong advantage on national security, the border, immigration, crime, the economy, the federal budget deficit and taxes. The two came out roughly equal on protecting American democracy a finding sure to frustrate Democrats who see Republican eagerness to push former President Trumps falsehoods about the 2020 election as a major threat.

So what does that tell us about the Democrats big spending plan? As Sanders would point out, the public sides with Democrats on healthcare and favors ideas such as expanding Medicare to provide hearing aids and dental coverage. That majority for Democrats melts away, however, when the question turns to taxes to pay for all that and the impact on the budget. The public gets pulled in both directions.

A second, less-obvious issue involves what political scientists call salience.

Ask people in January to name their favorite ice cream flavor, and the results will be accurate (chocolate routinely edges out vanilla in most surveys). But that doesnt mean most Americans have a strong hankering for a cone in the midst of winter; theres a reason ice cream production in June typically runs 70% to 80% higher than in December. (Bidens all-season taste for ice cream marks him as an exception.)

A similar truth applies to politics: Voters might favor or oppose a policy but not consider it a top priority at the moment. Unless a survey measures both dimensions support and salience its only giving part of the picture.

On the big Build Back Better bill that Sanders touted, for example, a Monmouth University poll released Wednesday found that 61% of Americans said they supported the social spending at least somewhat not quite the 70% to 80% that Sanders cited, but still a majority. Similarly, 56% supported spending to combat climate change.

But asked how important it is, those surveyed gave a very different verdict: Only 24% said passing the bill was a top priority while 37% said it was important, but there are other more pressing matters for Congress to deal with, and another 37% said it either wasnt important or shouldnt be passed.

Americans have been consistent about what they see as the top priorities right now: The economy, especially rising prices, and the continued COVID-19 pandemic. A majority of voters see the Democrats plans as largely unrelated to those two concerns.

Biden has pointed to economists who say his program would reduce inflation over time, but voters either havent absorbed that message or doubt its truth.

The same issue of salience affects other items high on the Democratic agenda. An NBC News poll this month found, for example, that while 42% of Americans cited jobs and the economy as one of the top two problems facing the country, and another 23% cited the cost of living, only 15% listed social and racial justice, 14% climate change and 12% voting rights.

That doesnt mean Democrats should stop pursuing issues they care about: A political party cant let polls entirely guide its direction, or it wont end up standing for anything. And elected officials can raise the salience of an issue by focusing on it, although the power of the presidential pulpit is often overrated.

But if a party is going to try to persuade voters about its priorities, its important to recognize that persuasion is called for and not insist that the public already believes in the program.

Consider the voting rights bill that Democratic leaders brought to the Senate floor this month in a doomed effort to break a Republican filibuster: The Monmouth poll found that 26% of the public supported it, 24% were opposed, 19% had no opinion and 31% knew nothing about it.

Equally important: If a party is going to spend time and energy on topics that voters dont see as job number one, then its crucial to ensure that voters believe job one is under control. On both those counts, Democrats this last year have conspicuously failed.

Perhaps the most frightening number for Democrats in that NBC News poll was this: Asked to characterize the year 2021, 44% called it one of the worst years for the U.S., and another 37% called it below average. Only 18% called the year about average or better.

When youre the party in charge, you can expect to suffer when voters have that grim a view of current conditions. Telling yourself that despite it all, the country really agrees with your side is a form of denial that can only deepen the problem.

I wrote last week about the role state courts have played in restraining Republican gerrymandering in the current redistricting cycle. On Monday, another court this time a three-judge federal panel in Alabama issued a ruling that could have a major impact if it survives on appeal.

The judges said that Alabamas Republican-controlled legislature had violated the Voting Rights Act by packing most of the states Black voters into a single congressional district and splitting other Black communities. They ordered lawmakers to draw a new map with at least two districts where the Black population would be sufficient to elect a Black representative. That likely would lead to the election of a second Democrat from Alabama.

The states only current Black member of Congress, Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell, called the ruling a monumental victory. The case will move directly to the Supreme Court. If the justices uphold the ruling, it could serve as a precedent for similar moves in other Southern states, including South Carolina and Louisiana.

Notably, two of the three judges on the panel were Trump appointees.

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For more than a year, Democratic activists have publicly campaigned for Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer to retire, fearing that the longer he stayed on the high court, the more the risk that Democrats could lose their tenuous 50-50 hold on the Senate.

Court insiders said all along that Breyer, 83, likely would retire at the end of the current term, and Thursday he did exactly that, announcing that he would leave the court when his successor is confirmed. News of his retirement leaked out on Wednesday.

As David Savage reported, Breyers departure wont change the ideological makeup of the court, where conservatives have a 6-3 majority. But it will allow Biden to appoint a younger justice who might serve long enough to, eventually, be part of a liberal majority.

Biden has said hell appoint a Black woman to the court, and he repeated that promise on Thursday when he appeared at the White House with Breyer to formally announce the justices resignation. The leading candidates are federal appeals court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, 51, and California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger, 45. Jackson has the advantage that shes just recently been through a Senate confirmation to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in June with support of all the Democrats and three Republicans.

Another potential nominee, federal District Judge J. Michelle Childs, 55, of South Carolina, has a strong champion in Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), one of Bidens leading congressional allies. Her nomination to the D.C. Circuit is pending in the Senate.

The vacancy on the court gives Biden and congressional Democrats an opportunity to move past their recent setbacks and reenergize Black and progressive voters, Eli Stokols, Jennifer Haberkorn and Melanie Mason report. That is, if all goes well.

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Supporters of the expanded Child Tax Credit continue to push Biden to fight to extend it, Stokols reported. Last week, Biden suggested he might have to drop the credit from any revamped version of his spending package. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has opposed the credit, at least in its current form.

Tensions over Ukraine continue to rise as the U.S. on Wednesday rebuffed two key demands from Russia. As Tracy Wilkinson reported, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken told reporters that the U.S. was willing to discuss reciprocal efforts with Russia to de-escalate, but that the Biden administration had refused Russian demands for a formal pledge that NATO would never accept Ukraine as a member.

The Federal Reserve signaled readiness to raise interest rates in March and take other aggressive actions to combat high prices endangering the nations economic health. As Don Lee reported, Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. Powell made clear in a news conference that the central bank had pivoted its focus from maximizing employment to its other chief goal: achieving price stability.

At least 14.5 million Americans have signed up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Acts marketplaces in the current open enrollment period, Anumita Kaur reported. The record number comes after the administration took several steps to lower costs and expand access to insurance. The number could go higher since some states, including California, are still accepting new signups.

As extremism in politics has increased, reformers have proposed a host of ways to tweak the electoral system with an eye toward making the process more friendly toward centrists. Californias top-two primary was one such move. New York Citys ranked-choice voting system was another.

Now, Alaska has adopted the most sweeping statewide change to date. As Mark Barabak writes, the states new system, which its Supreme Court recently upheld, combines a top-four runoff with ranked-choice voting. It takes effect in time for this years elections.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosis announcement that she plans to seek reelection extends one of San Franciscos longest-running, most-fevered political guessing games, Barabak wrote: Who will succeed her when she finally does step aside? Two of the most-discussed candidates are state Sen. Scott Wiener, 51, whose district covers a lot of the same ground as Pelosis congressional district, and the speakers eldest daughter, Christine Pelosi, 55, a Democratic activist.

Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin announced Wednesday he will not seek reelection to a third term, just one week after a recall bid targeting him fell short of the required signatures. As Benjamin Oreskes and David Zahniser reported, the unexpected announcement upended the campaign to represent the district, which takes in much of the Westside. Bonin, one of the councils most progressive members, said he had struggled with depression for years and decided that it was time to focus on health and wellness.

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday moved to phase out oil drilling and gas extraction in the city over the next two decades, signaling the end to an industry that helped create modern Southern California, Dakota Smith reported.

The California Legislature is headed for another bruising fight over vaccine requirements, George Skelton wrote in his column. Gov. Gavin Newsom should support a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for schools.

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Essential Politics: Progressives mislead themselves about popularity of their plans - Los Angeles Times