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With a heavily local election this year and a congressional election next year, local progressives are organizing.

After last fall's election, the Democratic Party nationally is in bad shape and a lot of older politicians are discredited by the results of the November election. Surveys say younger voters are concerned about what they are seeing in the Trump Administration and its positions.

Locally, the former Bernie Sanders progressives are organizing themselves looking to fall and 2018. They held a meeting Tuesday night in Communications Workers Local 1122 hall in Cheektowaga with a number of political candidates present to speak and shake a few hands in a crowded room.

Local Liberty Union Progressives Co-chair Matt Dearing said it was organizing time.

"We're trying to build our own sort of base here in the area," Dearing said. "We used to be Buffalo for Bernie Sanders before the election, before he lost. So we want to be the engine that keeps the party moving forward and makes the changes that need to be made to get us some seats again. We're not even in control in the New York State Senate."

There are more Democrats than Republicans in the State Senate, but many work with the GOP as the Independent Democratic Conference. Dearing said there are opportunities for progressives, but not much locally.

"Not so much here in Erie County," he said. "Things are kind of locked in, at the moment, but all across the country there is a lot of growing more room for the progressive movement to sort of get their feet in and there's a big deliberation going on whether the choice is to join the Democratic Party or leave the Democratic Party and join the Green Party and start a third, a new progressive party."

Dearing pointed to Sheriff Tim Howard and the problems of the Holding Center as an issue for this year and Democratic sheriff candidate Bernie Tolbert was at the meeting.

"We've had a Republican sheriff, for instance, in Erie County for I don't even know how long, to be honest, but with the problems that are going in the Holding Center, we think, particularly here in an off-year, we have a chance to drive up engagement and interest among people in the region," Dearing said. "Next year is something that we're very excited for, especially with Mr. Collins being up for re-election."

Dearing says a number of his members live in Clarence Congressman Chris Collins' district. His close alliance with President Trump is not likely to go over well with progressives.

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Local progressives have eye on off-year election prizes | WBFO - WBFO

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WASHINGTON (CNN) - Spurned on health care by hard-line Republicans, President Donald Trump's White House is now looking for Democratic assistance to confirm Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, advance a massive new infrastructure investment and fund the government.

The Democratic base doesn't want any part of it.

Buoyed by its initial victory on health care, Democrats are interested in using the improved bargaining position that the party's House and Senate members suddenly find themselves in.

Instead, progressives are continuing to demand total opposition to Trump.

With the confirmation fight over Gorsuch and a deadline to fund the government both looming, Democratic lawmakers are under intense pressure not to give an inch, even if that means forcing what could be a losing battle over the filibuster in the Senate.

Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-California, said Tuesday that the party's constituencies feel "energized" and "emboldened" now that Republicans have failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and believe they can hamstring Trump for the duration of his presidency.

"If he were a TV show, I think he would be canceled for next season," Sanchez said of Trump.

An epic clash between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, looms over the Gorsuch confirmation battle.

If Democrats don't supply at least eight votes to get Gorsuch over the 60-vote threshold, McConnell is likely to invoke the "nuclear option" -- removing Democrats' ability to filibuster Supreme Court nominees.

As of Tuesday night, 26 Democrats have said or suggested they will filibuster Trump's nominee, according to CNN's tally.

But liberal groups aren't concerned about losing that potential leverage for future confirmation fights.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee sent a letter to members in Vermont this week criticizing Sen. Patrick Leahy over what the group called "squishy comments" about confirming Gorsuch. He'd said he is "not inclined to filibuster" Gorsuch.

It's not just Gorsuch. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Monday sent a letter to House budget-writers urging them to reject Trump's request for border wall funding as a deadline to fund the government and avert a shutdown draws closer -- signaling that any effort to implement a key Trump campaign promise could trigger another major battle.

"Across issues, the Republican agenda represents handouts to giant corporations and the rich while a populist progressive agenda fights for the little guy," said Progressive caucus co-founder Adam Green. "Those are two completely opposite directions, and Trump has broken his campaign promises by running full-steam toward corporate welfare over and over again."

On health care, Trump has predicted Obamacare will ultimately collapse and that Democrats will seek to strike a bargain with him.

Rep. Joe Crowley of New York, the Democratic caucus chair, said he is unaware of any direct outreach from Trump's White House to House Democrats.

"If the president is serious about working with Democrats, he has to completely revamp the way he has conducted himself in office so far," he said.

Before working on health care changes, Democrats say Republicans first need to take the party's longstanding desire to repeal the law off the table.

"We're at the table. We're ready to negotiate. We just need them to abandon the purely political attacks on Obamacare," Crowley said.

Left-leaning groups also say they don't buy the sincerity of Trump's desire to work with Democrats.

"Trump and the GOP have done nothing to indicate they are legitimately interested in working with Democrats on bipartisan solutions that would benefit the American people," said MoveOn.org national spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre.

"If Trump wants to endorse progressive ideas like Medicare for All and massive government investments without corporate giveaways -- in a way that unites populist progressives, Democrats, and a minimal handful of swing-district Republicans -- that would be a fantasy world that is not going to happen," he said.

Democrats are suggesting they'll work with Trump only if he fully embraces their ideas -- an unlikely prospect.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California sent fellow party members a letter Tuesday congratulating them on their health care victory and soliciting ideas to improve Obamacare.

"It would be my hope to create a list of priorities to engage with our colleagues, with social media and advocacy groups," she said, "and perhaps even with the president."

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Progressives continue to demand total opposition to Trump - NBC Montana

By Joan Swirsky It's easy to deride the aberrant behavior of the leftists we've been unhappily witness to, both over the course of the presidential campaign and particularly since Donald J. Trump ascended to the presidency on November 8th, 2016. After all, they've never recovered from the Bush v Gore race of 2000!

But as a wise neighbor told me years ago about an exceptionally vile person we both knew: "She's more to be pitied than scorned."

At the time, this seemed overly charitable to me. But as the decades have elapsed and I've watched progressives consistently acting so infantile, it is clear that their limited repertoire hurling of insults and obscenities, public temper tantrums, wanton destruction of property, idle threats to leave the country, physical assaults on people who disagree with them, engaging in serial lies of increasing magnitude and pepper spraying mothers and children marching in support of President Trump dictates that they are indeed more to be pitied than scorned.

After all, all of their sound and fury has resulted in drum roll here nothing!

Make that worse than nothing, especially if you're dealing with the mortal enemy of the progressive agenda FACTS!

In 2010, in the first midterm elections after Barack Obama took office, the Democrat Party experienced some of the hugest losses since the Great Depression, with Republicans gaining 63 seats and a majority in the House, six seats in the Senate which expanded its minority, 680 seats in state legislatives, and 29 of the 50 state governorships.

Still, in their head-in-the-sand fashion, Democrats ignored the losses and continued to believe that as long as they could, ahem, control the outcome of the big elections with conservatives who had died but strangely reappeared after death as Democrats, and organizations like ACORN aiding and abetting their efforts their power actually abuse of power would go on forever.

After Mr. Obama was reelected in 2012, Democrats held control of the Senate and Republicans maintained their hefty lead in the House, as well as the majority of governorships. None of this mattered to Mr. Obama, whose contempt for the duly-elected Congress was matched by his arrogance in consistently bypassing that august body to foist his own Marxist agenda on an increasingly suspicious electorate.

The results of the November 2014 midterms were, by any measure, a catastrophe for the left. Republicans gained a total of 247 seats in the House of Representatives and 54 seats in the Senate, achieving the largest Republican majority in the U.S. Congress since the 71st Congress in 1929. In addition, the GOP won 31 governors' races, Democrats 18. And Republican-controlled legislatures increased from 57 to 67, leaving Democrats in control of the smallest number of state legislatures since 1860.

While both midterms rejected the Progressive agenda, the clueless left still had enough blustery confidence in the Democrat Party to put up not one but two socialists for president in 2016: Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

Unmistakable hints that the Progressive agenda might be coming to its ignominious end came over the course of the 18 months that Donald Trump ran for the presidency. During that time, candidate Trump, speaking to stadium-sized audiences, systematically attacked every one of Barack Obama's failed ideas, policies, and executive orders that had been inflicted on Americans during the previous eight years, calling them "disastrous," "failures," and most important, "bad for America." Among the items on his laundry list were:

All of this rang resoundingly true to Americans who lived outside of the East and Left coasts of America, those blue-state bastions of Progressives who love the goodies that freeloading communists and socialists always love free everything, from housing to schooling to education to medical care to illegal drivers' licenses to illegal voting rights. Oh, not to omit a demonstrably low regard for America and American exceptionalism.

I personally laugh out loud when I hear of the uber-wealthy people from both coasts and their slavish echo chamber in the media sending out tweets and emails from their privately-piloted planes bad-mouthing Wall Street and vilifying people who support secure borders, when none of these sanctimonious phonies would let a day go by without checking their spectacular bank accounts, having their armed body guards at-the-ready to protect them, and their valets and maids double-check that their home alarm systems were in perfect working order.

In the same way, I laugh when I see leftist relics like Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg from "The View" and their ilk in other leftist media cite Donald Trump from 12 years ago talking locker-room talk about women, when these self-appointed defenders of morality and women's rights have twisted themselves into labyrinthine knots to avoid mention of the quintessential abused woman of the 20th century, Hillary Clinton, and the degree to which her husband Bubba their hero spit in Hillary's face every day and night for eight years as well as before and after his presidency with his serial abuse, cheating, accusations of rape, and lying under oath about his sordid behavior.

Their hypocrisy should not only discredit them for all time, but also the so-called journalists like Mika (MSNBC) and Norah and Gail (CBS-TV) and Alisyn (CNN) and Rachel (MSNBC), and the other faux feminists who work for uber-rich male leftists, with their globalist agendas, running media empires for multimillion-dollar salaries it's always about following the money and literally dictating what their employees say.

Hey, ladies, you're angry at Pres. Trump, whose wife and daughter both run hugely successful businesses? Ivanka now has an office in the West Wing! Why are you angry at him instead of your cheap bosses? Why aren't you running a channel or cable network yourselves? Pathetic!

But this is relatively small potatoes in comparison to the barrage of anti-Trump commentary these fake journalists regurgitated both before and after the election, including the false, go-nowhere Russian narrative. They should be the first to admit, but never will, that all of their efforts have resulted in another drumroll here nothing!

Fake words real deeds

President Trump is still filling stadiums and still accomplishing more every week than Barack Obama did in eight years. An article edited by Jim Kouri, founder of a homeland-security consulting firm and Board Member of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, "First 50 Days a Major Victory for Americans," spells out a number of those accomplishments:

Sweet

I remember watching the returns come in on November 8th, with virtually every commentator on every network and cable channel pronouncing the inevitable conclusion.

At 8:30 p.m. on the East Coast, this is what I heard:

"It's going to be an early night...probably over by 11 p.m."

"I think this will be a landslide...."

"There is simply no way that liberal states like Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania will ever vote for a Republican...never been done."

On and on blathered the "experts"!

But they were all wrong!

What we're seeing today is the result of what happens when a grown up steps in to save the mess that out-of-control Progressive children routinely make. Tooth fairies and unicorns and the glamorization of brutal regimes run by megalomaniacs like Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and the Castro brothers in Cuba and the mullahs in Iran all of which leftists support! are antithetical to freedom and prosperity and everything else that America stands for.

President Trump effectively destroyed his opponents' identities everything they think, believe in, embrace, base their behavior on, agree with their friends and partners about, everything that animates their entire lives. What we've been witnessing is their pitiful reactions.

To them, I say without a shred of sympathy for their offensive, classless, and seditious behavior Boo Hoo!

Joan Swirsky

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Progressives devolving - RenewAmerica - RenewAmerica

We could do thiswe could reach across the aisles, across the abortion rhetoric and say, ALL life has value as well as Some situations are tragic and need special consideration.

The abortion issue is multi-layered and complex.

Dear Thoughtful Pastor: For a long time, I have been bothered by the seemingly unshakable fidelity of Christian voters to the single issue of abortion. It seems to me that progressives need to find other ways to talk about abortion.

I know many persons who would vote for a more progressive agenda, but for this single issue: persons who love Jesus, and care about war, poverty, education, health care, and human rights, but who feel left out of the discussion.

Some of my friends have said, I can never vote for any candidate who supports abortion!

Specifically, many of these voters did not like Donald Trump or any of the other Republican candidates.

Yet, in the privacy of the voting booth, they voted for the GOP candidate because Republicans seem to be the only ones listening to their concerns.

Many may have voted against their best interests. However, rather than offering an alternative, progressives essentially disregarded these voters written them off, as though they count for nothing.

I have no answers. Just questions. But, questions I feel need to be addressed.

Personally, I think you are right: For many Christians, this became a one-issue election: vote for someone, no matter how morally compromised or otherwise unqualified, who promises to appoint a conservative Supreme Court justice. Do that and righteousness will prevail.

Voters expect that any new Supreme Court Justice appointed will rule favorably on any case that overturns the current legalization of abortion in all states.

For much of the religiously-affiliated population, every other issue, including jeopardizing health care, became far less important than protecting the unborn.

Progressives wrongly ignored this moral mandate.

Clearly, we have difficulties discussing abortion. People quickly turn to epithets (anti-womens rights or baby-killers) rather than seeing the extraordinary complexities of some pregnancies.

Unfortunately, an absolute no abortion rule de-personalizes females. Women become only a vessel, required to carry to term the product of some mans violent need to prove his manhood or some fathers perverse need to impregnate his daughter.

The impregnated womans mental and physical health issues carry no weight.

There is no love of human life in such draconian restrictions.

But a no questions asked abortion policy leads to a cheapening of human intimacy and respect for all human life. It reduces the sexual act, intended to both express love and produce life, to little more than raw biology.

A fetus becomes human upon the first breath. Its a magical moment, this miracle of separation. Because of superb neonatal medicine, the point at which that separation can successfully take place is now far earlier in pregnancies. The moral dilemma is real.

Unfortunately, abortion and infanticide have been part of human tragedy from our earliest days. Such decisions are nearly always driven by desperation.

Unfortunately, abortion and infanticide have been part of human tragedy from our earliest days. Such decisions are nearly always driven by desperation.

Finances, lack of support by the other party to the pregnancy, and our utterly inadequate educational/daycare infrastructure for parents of small children may drive the desperate decision to abort.

Statistics make one thing clear: If we want a radical reduction in the number of actual abortion procedures, we need to provide two things.

First, abundant and affordable access to reliable birth control.

Second, ready availability of safe, confidential and legal abortion providers. The best bet right now is Planned Parenthood. Defund this, and illegal abortions will go through the ceiling, endangering everyone.

The first prevents unwanted pregnancies. The second protects against debilitating fear. They work together.

First, demolish the shame.

Second, acknowledge that women are people deserving of full respect and ownership of their bodies.

Third, start sex education early and make it honest: abstinence only programs have a dismal track record of lowering the teen pregnancy rate.

Fourth, offer the resources for top-class child care for all.

Fifth, give emotional support to pregnant women and make the relinquishing of a child for adoption an honorable and praised position.

Do all these in concert and the need to terminate pregnancies except for the most horrifying of situations will sink like a massive stone heaved overboard in a stormy ocean.

We could do thiswe could reach across the aisles, across the divides and across the rhetoric and say, ALL life has value as well as Some situations are tragic and need special consideration.

Those two statements need to get married in a formal ceremony.

The all-or-nothing factions, Absolutely no abortion ever and Any abortion any time, make the most noise and have the least numerical support. The majority of people in the US understand abortion procedures need to be legal but exceedingly rare.

Abortion as a routine means of birth control or population control demeans us all. To the Progressives shame, they didnt get this. Even worse, maybe too many dont believe it.

If the US is going to insist it has a moral foundation, it needs to do a much better job of caring for its vulnerable. That vulnerable population very much includes women who find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy.

They, along with the unborn, are deserving of life.

[Note: A version of this column is slated to run in the March 31, 2017, edition of the Denton Record-Chronicle. The Thoughtful Pastor, AKA Christy Thomas, welcomes all questions for the column. Although the questioner will not be identified, I do need a name and verifiable contact information in case the newspaper editor has need of it. You may use this link to email questions.]

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Help! Why can't progressives get the obsession with abortion? - Patheos (blog)

Many students across UGAs campus identify as being progressive or liberal. In the 2016 election, 58 percent of UGAs community supported Clinton over other candidates. However, there is a terrifying lack of unity among progressive groups on campus and an equally disappointingly amount of activism taking place.

While we all see the protests at the Arch, the most recent being over the Campus Carry bill, these protests are yet to show any real change in our school or our state.

This lack of large scale student activism is a new problem for UGA. In the 1960s, the University experienced a wave of student activism that shook it to its core.

During the 1960s, there was unequal treatment of female students. The Georgia Belle Handbook outlined strict dress codes and curfew rules for women; they were also barred from living off campus and from drinking.

In April of 1968, the University attempted to punish a female student for returning to her dorm room 30 minutes. In response, 400 student activists organized a three day sit in at the academic building to protest this situation. The case was dropped the next day.

While the protest was criticized by the school and local officials, within two years, men and women on campus were subjected to the same rules, and by 1980 women outnumbered men on campus.

This shows what a difference students can make in their school and state by actively banning together and standing up for what they believe is right. Without progressive students actively expressing their beliefs and channeling it into creating what they perceive as positive change on campus, all our rhetoric about social justice holds no weight.

The progressive students of UGA should rally for their chance in the upcoming special election in Congressional District 6, one of the largest suppliers of UGA students in recent years. It is a chance to fight back after the electoral losses of the 2016 election.

Yet progressive groups on campus have not acted to participate in voter drives or phone banks to garner support for the democratic front runner John Ossoff, who is doing well in a historically red district.

I wont sit here and encourage students to skip class or have sit-ins over any perceived transgression against them by the University. However, its our duty, not just as students but also as citizens to take civil activism seriously and to work toward creating change on our campus, in our state and in our country.

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OPINION: Progressives need to take more action - Red and Black